In Another Life
by Porticulis
Summary: When I reside in your touch, in the sanctuary of your shade. AU. Yaoi.
1. Prologue

A/N: In a sense, some ideas should remain a private fantasy. There's something about 3 a.m. though that makes one lose some inhibitions. I've always imagined an alternate universe situation in a feudal era with Doumeki as a shinto priest with his exorcism bow, and Watanuki as an onmyouji. In this work, I indulged myself. *sigh* I guess until I can spare the time and energy to do this properly...

* * *

In Another Life

A world where even the palest grass shoots were stained with thick blood dripping onto the severed fingers of a manor guard. Doumeki's pure white robes were befouled by the dreaded corruption of death- a Shinto priest's nightmare. Yet he hadn't even a reproachful gaze for me as the fires cast his soot-streaked cheeks in a hellish light. Alone, thronged by the riven corpses darkening the earth, he checked the burning gash in my side.

"Run, Shizuka-dono. There is nothing left for you here." Each breath shallower than the next. I had expended far too much of my spiritual strength.

"There is nothing left," he retorted simply. The proof of that hung over us. The twisted vermillion of twilight stained the blackened sky as the sun bled into the horizon.

"When night falls, _their_ comrades will rout the land. If you leave now-" For all the power those demons that possessed the lord and his men had demonstrated, they had thrown themselves before our spells far too readily to have been the masterminds behind the deception.

"We'll be stronger together," he insisted with infuriating calm, quite ignoring the weeping spear wound in his left shoulder as he began to clean mine. His bow hung as limply by his side as that disabled left arm.

"Don't be stupid!" A coughing bout broke my furious reasons into ragged remonstrance. "Haa- every second of this taint- haa- weakens you! _I_ weaken you!"

"I'm not talking about spiritual power." He calmly explained as his fingers worked gently around the torn flesh. "I'm talking about will."

"Doumeki-" I tried again but he cut me off.

"Because you're the type who will give up on himself too easily- I have to survive to keep you from doing something stupid." My silence drew his resolute gaze against my blurring vision.

"Stupid… I'm the reason the demons came…" I whispered as the confused tears fought to be free.

"You don't know that-" He started to soothe.

"YOU DO!"

The chill of the night touched only my eyes, hellfire surged within my blood.

"I bear the forbidden soul that every demon covets… the incarnation of darkest temptation… and because I dared believe in a home of my own…" My words were tumbling as helplessly as my emotions.

"We just need to find a purer land, a better anchor for a spiritual barrier-" He tried to reason.

I watched the taut cords in his cheeks play anxiously. The yearning to touch them weighed more than tomorrow did upon my heart, but whatever I touched was doomed to fall beneath the crushing talons of clamouring demons.

"I killed the lord you swore to protect-"

"No-"

"…the people you swore to protect-"

"-none of this-"

"…the land your ancestors have guarded for generations-"

"_I will not watch you die!" _Clutching my robes, his trembling grip struggled to secure me, as if he feared losing his hold. "_I_ staked their lives just so I could keep you here- _do you get it now?_"

"What… you…" I stammered.

"You're so obsessed about demons seeking to lay their claim over you that you couldn't… wouldn't notice a human doing the same. Watanuki… Watanuki… only you… you're the only one I won't let go of." His head remained bowed against the pained battering of my heart while the agony of his breaths hemmed me in.

"You fool… you've lost everything… and you still…" I mumbled numbly.

"I lost that a long time ago… when I first found you, collapsed before that wayside shrine." Soft murmurs warm against my chest. "When I found that one thing, that only thing."

But what did that mean? I gazed unseeing at the crimson emptiness around us, closing in on us.

"I will not be yours in this life…" I quavered, "but if I am permitted a next… this debt to you…"

Malice twisted the latent poison of grievance in the spiritual field, energized hatred rippling around our pale auras. _They_ approached. He raised a smile stricken with bitter tears, the last stores of his power awakened to their brightest incandescence.

"Just let them take me in this life… you can still escape." I could only pretend to accept my fate, but if I had to witness _them_ tear Doumeki apart… I simply had no courage for that.

"I told you," he murmured as he leaned in with a radiance that emanated from a deeper place than mere power, "I'm claiming you for my own."

Such… warmth… but in the instant that the tide of his passion weighed into mine past our lips… I sensed the balance of nature shifting- an onmyoudo spell?

"Dnm-mnf-hah-Doumeki!" I struggled to break away.

"Shhh… this is fine-" He soothed, but I had already recognized the spell patterns.

"You-mnff!"

Doumeki could force my silence with his lips, but not my acquiescence to his plans. _'Not in my place- no, please, not in my-' _

But the light of my consciousness was slipping away as my essence poured forth into Doumeki's glowing form. When the demons descended they would find only an empty corpse slumped against a maimed Shinto priest shining with an irresistible enigma of existence… their talons and their fangs, ripping into hard-earned sinews and sun-rich skin as if they were nothing more than the wrapping around a prize… a nightmare far more terrifying than the one that had once spurred me relentlessly across the restless land.

'_Dou… meki… plea-'_

_

* * *

...  
_


	2. Jelly Lights and Coffee Liquor

A/N: Well, I never expected to write something like this about my fetish when it comes to to DouWata, as in the more modern-based setting and all, but it kinda flowed naturally. Actually, it was either write or lose my mind, so that may have been a greater motivation. In any case, I hope any potential readers enjoy this. I've raised the rating to reflect language use and probable mature themes.

* * *

_Jelly. _

Or rather, _agar agar_ jelly.

The columns of brightly coloured neon lights drowned out the shadows that lurked between them in the rows of curtained window panels and the dank alleyways. Watanuki fought to focus on his wobbling vision of the carnival hues through a fog of consciousness tinted with crimson pain. When was the last time he made any _agar agar_ jelly? Five… six years ago? A nervous eleven-year-old carefully pouring the fifth layer in an ambitious deca-layered project using a custom-made mould of the Tower of Babel. It would have worked too if those damn demons hadn't chosen that precise moment to shatter the kitchen windows in a sudden ambush. At least he had been able to lead them away before they could get to his legal guardian back then.

His late adoptive parents hadn't been that lucky.

"Shou-san… Kyousuke-san…" He couldn't cry. It would be too much of an indulgence to allow that guilt to simply slip away into the filthy puddles and grating grime beneath his weightless steps. After all, yet again, he had survived; survived on the sacrifice of those who loved him.

He hadn't asked for his heritage… he hadn't asked for his powers, or for the curse laid upon him by the sin of his ancestors- but he had asked to be loved.

"That's why… never again…"

…_will I ask to be loved._

The searing stab of pain in his side was welcome agony, as the dark pavement closed wildly up to him.

…

* * *

"Oh but you're such a _naughty boy_ Honda-san… you call me your blossoming moon, but I promptly turn into an invisible _new_ moon when you've filled my milk bottle-" I lamented with a theatrical sigh cast into the heavy aroma of coffee beans and alcohol.

Raucous laughter greeted my exaggerated pout, and my tipsy patron favoured me with a wistful smile.

"Would I believe that you could love a plump, balding, salaryman, I'd carry you over my shoulder back to my apartment in a heartbeat," he countered with accommodating drama, stroking my cheek while his eyes glinted affectionately behind the silvery outline of his rimless glasses.

"Oh no- if anyone's going to redeem Keiki, it's going to be me-" Honda-san's lawyer friend and college buddy interjected playfully, starting off a fresh bout of mirth from the last member of their group.

"Do I smell a bidding war?" Yamada-san quipped, while Saeki, my barely legal fellow host, clung to the sleeve of the property agent's business suit like a spoiled kitten.

"Yamada-san- you haven't been paying attention to me all evening-" he whined like the annoying tiny brat he was, his tight bubble butt, tightly sheathed in faded blue denims, threatening to pop.

A deep baritone cut across the cheeky banter, lightly reproving.

"Now, now gentlemen, this is a respectable establishment, not a whorehouse. My boys aren't sex slaves."

Magically, the fumes of coffee and liquor turned instantly into the spiced scent of spring.

Ah, spring! Spring was Mr. Engel Occido Trust, Master of this avant-garde coffee pub. Spring was an elegant European stroke in the modern Japanese gay bar scene in Ni-choume, Shinjuku. Spring was in his deep-set pale green eyes that were the colour of tender young shoots, while his glorious flaxen mane and grainy stubble gave him the appearance of a young lion fresh in his manhood. The commanding bridge of his nose harmonized beautifully with his finely balanced chin that was cut in a line that melted the borders of strength and flexibility. Then there was the heavenly craftsmanship in that powerful yet subtle frame, and-

"Master, you're always like that," the lawyer, Kenichi-san, complained. "You'll have to give up your boys one of these days."

_Not bloody likely. _

I spared the lanky, sharp-eyed advocate a scornful glare by burying it into a casual sip of Engel-sama's special blend. Oh… if Master made love the way he brewed coffee, those rumours of him having a big shot yakuza lover aren't so incredible after all.

The welcoming chime saved me from the rest of the conversation as the front door swung open-

"Kurou!" I gasped, my relief jolting into alarm as I recognized my senior straining to keep his balance in the doorway. Hunched in his short bomber jacket, a limp body was draped loosely over his back.

"You killed someone!" Saeki moaned idiotically.

"Saeki-" I began testily as I hurried over to a panting Kurou.

"Kurou wouldn't do that- at least he wouldn't bring the body back," Engel-sama smoothly intervened as he brought up the flank consisting of Honda-san and Yamada-san (towing an attached Saeki). My heart skipped a beat as Engel-sama brushed past.

"Thanks." Kurou returned wryly, his languid dark eyes turning to find me. "A little help here?"

"I'll help," Engel-sama offered. "Keiki-kun is still in the middle of entertaining."

"Where did you find him?" I distantly heard Honda-san ask as I admired the fluid shift of muscles beneath Engel-sama's shirt.

"In the alley between the private video parlour and the old vacant love hotel." Kurou straightened up in relief as Engel-sama effortlessly lifted the pale, unconscious youth- _princess style_. Kurou caught my frown and returned me one of his own. "I didn't do anything to him… he was like that when I found him."

"Why are you telling me that?" I retorted, mildly confused. My scowl only deepened as he shook his head and turned a rare nervous plea to Engel-sama.

"I can give him my futon. I'll spread some newspapers and sleep in the corridor." He begged quietly.

Engel-sama was already heading toward the stairs leading to the rooms.

"And have us play hopscotch every time we need to get to the bathroom? I don't think so. We've got spare rooms."

Such chivalry, such generosity, such-

"Now get back to work." He added as he climbed up the carpeted steps.

…

* * *

"Oi… you've gotta be kidding, right?" –that was the first thing Kouichi Furuyama, part-time undergrad at Waseda University, part-time bedroom miracle to horny campus babes, blurted when he first saw the man his father had ordered him to meet.

The priestly pure white _joue _in iridescent silk that seemed to shimmer with an aura of celestial blue, more than just stood out against the backdrop of drunken university students, some of whom obliged tradition by teetering in loud snatches of suggestive songs. Kouichi raised his eyes from the hanging corded sleeves buffeting wildly beside the flapping royal purple _hakama_, to the peaked cloth cap tied around the otherwise normal youthful face of a seventeen-year-old. The chill of early spring was starting to numb his tongue, but nothing seemed to remedy the gaping disbelief. He was even wearing those black lacquered clogs.

_In front of Takadanobaba Station in the_ _town area of Shinjuku City?!_

"Furuyama-san?" Those impassive gold eyes seemed to size him up in one glance and pin him against the suddenly palpable night.

"Shi… Shizuka-sama?" The honorific simply tumbled out, despite the fact that Kouichi had spent a good ten minutes whining to his dad about addressing some backward village boy up in the mountains with such ceremony.

"Doumeki will be more appropriate," the stoic young man informed him stiffly. "I am to blend in with the other sybaritic degenerates of the town."

"Sybaritic degenerates." Kouichi echoed, not even with much rancour.

"Yes. I have to be accepted by your kind. It is of the utmost importance."

"I see." Kouichi replied coolly as he watched the perfectly poised youth return a calm, unperturbed stare. "And what might a Shinto priest find so important to do in our humble, filthy little town?"

There wasn't even the hint of a smile in the collected golden gaze.

"To slay a progenitor of evil- the Doe-eyed Asura."

* * *

TBC


	3. Sanguine Maple

A/N: I think by this point some people are confused. I actually do have an idea where this is headed. Anyway, please enjoy.

* * *

Sanguine Maple

He was dreaming again, but it hadn't reached the bad part.

_The light cotton robe that usually hung loosely off his frame, now flapped in a fitful afternoon breeze. The dappled sunlight across jadeite green grass was enchanting to him- fingers of shadow and sunlight interlocking against softly growing life. Beneath a dripping shade of vivid scarlet leaves, Watanuki leaned against the slender trunk of a dwarf maple tree. It was a tight fit, and his feet stuck out there in the incandescent afternoon heat, but he enjoyed the tucked-in feeling it gave him. _

_Before the rustle of steps whispering along the stirring blades of grass reached his ears, Watanuki sensed the pure spirit dawning from the direction of the training grounds. The recognition drew a shivering anticipation in him that the quiet part of himself noted with alarm. _

'_Mustn't let your guard down…' _

_Struggling with his instinctive smile, he tried thinking sobering thoughts until he could see the fragmented colours and angles of the Shinto priest through the lacework crimson veil. A sigh escaped before he could help it. He yearned to watch that sturdy impassivity, but he could barely make out Doumeki's face. _

"_I heard you helped calm an angry house spirit." The clear but flat-toned voice abruptly enquired. _

"_Tanaka-san has been neglecting the house chores- it finally got fed-up and cursed all the fires in the house." Watanuki explained idly, resisting the urge to stretch his hand out and peel back the gaps in the blood-red foliage._

"_Hn. It's tough since his wife died." _

_It was a simple sentence, but those brief words hid so much grief. _

"_But knowing that you personally performed their last rites … he appreciates it. Both his wife and his stillborn son will be able to pass on in peace." Watanuki murmured, uncertain if the words held any real comfort._

_Nothing could fill the void left behind after watching two lives slip past your helpless hands. The villagers had watched with scandalized shock at their hero's failure. Hah! The malicious mutterings would only last until the next demonic portent frightened them out of their wits, and they would surge around him like blind kittens to their mother. _

_People were all the same. Your skills dehumanized you into a communal utility whose sole function was to serve the expectations of everyone else. It had made his running a little easier to endure. _

"_I'm thinking of making dinner for Tanaka-san- he hasn't had a decent meal since even cooking fires wouldn't light in his house," Watanuki began. "Do you feel like having anything in particular tonight?" _

"_Peaches." Doumeki stated, much to Watanuki's annoyance._

"_And where am I going to get them at this time of year in such short notice?" He demanded._

"_You did ask." Doumeki pointed out with mild dissatisfaction._

_Yet despite himself, Watanuki smiled. He knew that he had coaxed Doumeki into eating proper meals again since that incident, and the novelty of caring for his protector had a mysterious warmth to it. _

"_I'll manage the peaches somehow." Watanuki murmured distractedly. _

* * *

Kurou frowned as he pressed his fingertips against the young man's sweat-beaded forehead. The fever seemed harsh, but he couldn't tell exactly how much because then he would have to grope around for a thermometer, which would mean prying open the fingers desperately clutching his arm.

Yet the stricken expression continued to frame restless lidded eyes. The youth he had found collapsed in the alleyway remained trapped in churning dreams.

"Peaches-"

A sudden whisper. Recovering from his initial surprise and uncertainty, Kurou leaned his ear just above those cracked lips.

"Din… ner… ches… peaches…"

"What's he saying?"

Kurou jerked up with a start, squinting at the dim light filtering past the open doorway. He made out the slight, slender outline of their resident jailbait, Saeki.

"What're you doing here?" Kurou quietly demanded. "I thought Yamada-san was staying for the night."

Saeki shrugged the question aside. "I work fast. What was he saying?"

Kurou turned back to the delicate features marred with the trembling traces of pain and fear. "Peaches. I think he wants them."

"Then get them. The grocer opposite that Chinese restaurant stocks good fruit." Saeki supplied.

"En. …Saeki?"

"Yeah?"

"Why do you act that way in front of Keiki?"

Saeki appeared to ponder the question for a moment, before splitting the pensive twist of his lips with a gleaming grin. "Because he's so fun to tease. But what about you, giving up on Keiki for this new toy?"

Kurou shook his head. "Keiki likes Master, and this guy was hurt."

"Those are separate issues." Saeki countered, but Kurou made no reply.

"What does Engel-san think?" Saeki went on, accepting the older youth's silence for the moment.

"He won't be any trouble." Kurou assured softly.

"Well, not here anyway. No one around here has the balls to mess around with Engel-san." Saeki agreed.

"Or gets to keep his balls if he does." Kurou added.

The youths exchanged a slow grin.

"Whatever happened to that punk anyway?" Kurou asked with a distant frown.

Saeki shrugged. "I heard Engel-san helped the guy relocate to Holland. He… _she _now goes by the name Himiko."

* * *

"It's tight," Doumeki noted dully, clearly unimpressed by Kouichi's twitching brow. Reflected in the dressing mirror before them, the two young men were flanked by the remains of what had once been Kouichi's neatly stored wardrobe.

"It's like a hurricane swept over this place-" the university student muttered darkly while he watched the younger man stretch his back uncomfortably, the dark cotton turtleneck sweater straining to contain the long and leanly muscled torso. It was bad enough that he was under strict orders to be at the beck and call of this loser kid from some obscure mountain shrine. Being subjected to an hour of being condescended over his small frame and petite clothing size, was definitely pushing it.

"This collar is choking me." The taller youth declared with a dissatisfied frown.

"Well if you aren't so adamant about heading out tonight when all the stores are closed, we could wait till tomorrow to buy clothes that fit," Kouichi all but growled. "My old man did some send some cash for your expenses."

"No. I sensed a powerful demonic surge on my way here. Had you not insisted I change I would already be investigating." Doumeki reproached mildly.

Kouichi's brows knitted with incredulity. Walking about town in that Shinto robe? He didn't care if the guy was from secluded mountain shrine, at least have some awareness!

"So what are you planning to do, some exorcism?" He sneered, unable to help himself.

Doumeki appeared unruffled by his caretaker's tone. "If it comes to that- but I doubt I'd find the Doe-eyed Asura there, and demons don't tend to hang around after they've feasted."

"Right, right." Kouichi muttered dismissively. "After a large fries and a coke, any demon would want to head to the movies to make out with his demon-bitches." He knew he had gone too far when the high priest's expression froze.

"I don't think the ravaging of human lives is something to joke about." Doumeki remarked stiffly.

This was leaving a bad taste. "Whatever, man. I just-"

"You're free to disbelieve the existence of demons, but know that real lives are at stake." Doumeki pressed on, golden eyes flashing dangerously.

"You expect me to believe some demons just descended in this town and ate a few people?" Kouichi demanded, anger and discomfort colouring his cheeks a hot scarlet.

Doumeki turned his back to the fuming university student, lifting a short wooden stick that was carved at both ends with four ornate arms that arced like open talons around a central pillar.

"Believe what you will; but I suggest you take a look at tomorrow's news." He replied simply. Glancing back impassively at Kouichi's glare, he gestured toward the doorway. "Well? Aren't you serving as my guide?"

Grasping his head in his hands, Kouichi took a deep breath and reminded himself that his father had included his fee in the funds for this stuck-up pubescent Shinto priest.

"Promise you won't let me get eaten?"

* * *

TBC


	4. Resting Place

A/N: I woke up feeling jealous of the rain. Well, enjoy.

* * *

Resting Place

* * *

_The darkness was a secret that the kiss snuck__ within. What did a demon taste like? Like the taste of your own chilled blood warmed-over._

* * *

Kouichi had thrown up everything in his stomach, but the bitter bile that burned uncomfortably at the back of his throat urged his pitiful gagging. Had he any sense of where he was and whom he was with, he would have restrained himself, lest Doumeki mocked him after. Yet, he couldn't force the horrific images from his mind. The violent blood splatters… the dark moist lumps…

"Ga-oouargh! Gahah!"

Who could have done that- what could have?

"Unsightly." That high, arrogant tone that Kouichi had come to hate in the past seven hours commented behind him. The shock of warmth against his back checked his indignant outburst. He couldn't help the shuddering relief as the young Shinto priest soothed calming circles against the back of his bent frame.

"Who could have done this?" Kouichi gasped hoarsely.

"Not who, _what_." Doumeki replied quietly. "Two men, sworn to each other. They had a child too. A boy my age. Of course, you can't tell from those remains."

Kouichi straightened to find the cleric watching the pale-faced policemen work behind the cordoning plastic tape warning against entry. The self-styled blue-clad guardians had arrived too late for this household. They looked more like nervous scavengers in the aftermath of the tragedy, sniffing anxiously about for an eluded threat.

"You'll attend classes soon, will you not?" Doumeki asked, golden eyes dark and sober beneath the dim illumination of the streetlights. "It's almost morning, perhaps you should return home soon."

"What about you?" Kouichi croaked, his desperately swallowed saliva merely irritating his burning throat.

"There aren't any proper remains for a decent burial, but I think I can at least arrange to have their tablets enshrined back home." Doumeki replied softly, a distant look in his eyes. "At least their afterlives would be safe."

Kouichi followed Doumeki's gaze, resisting the sudden warm pressure in his eyes.

"I'll skip class today."

* * *

It was just past noon when Engel realized he was housing a dead man. There was no mistaking the boy in the photo flashed in the news report of the gruesome murder discovered in the wee hours of the morning. Those lavender eyes had not been revealed to them in person, but that slender face and those gentle brows were unmistakable. The glasses were missing on the real person, but that was the least of Engel's concerns.

"… _possibly the most brutal murder in the history of Japan… hate crime… gay rights activists taking a strong stand in the wake of this tragedy… Ni-choume, well-known for its gay sub-culture…"_

"Oh. God."

Thirty minutes later, the little household of four gathered in the smaller guestroom where the "dead man" lay.

"Maybe he killed his adoptive parents and ran." Keiki offered amidst a lull in the discussion. Catching Kurou's dirty look, he glared back defensively. "It's a possibility! He could be dangerous!"

"Uwaaah! Keiki's scaring me!" Saeki bawled, sinking into Engel's doting embrace and earning a subdued growl from Keiki.

"It's good to be cautious, but more than that, what about the kid's health?" Engel turned a sobering look from Keiki to Kurou. "I think we should send him to the hospital. The authorities can take it from there."

"But we don't know what kind of trouble he's in." Kurou objected in a quiet voice. "For a murder at this level- what kind of monster's behind this? How would he react if he knew his prey's still alive?"

"Except he'd _know_ this Kimihiro Watanuki is still alive, since the boy did escape him." Keiki countered, his brows lowering commiseratively as he watched Kurou's stubborn expression sink into dismay. "Kurou-nii," he began affectionately, "if he's really a victim, he'd be safer with the authorities."

"Master… Keiki-kun's acting all gross again~!" Saeki whined, prompting the targeted youth to clench his fist threateningly.

"Kurou-kun?" Engel asked, watching the troubled expression on Kurou's face recede from view as the youth bowed his head, shortly cropped raven hair run through in a frustrated sweep of his fingers.

"I… guess."

Keiki sighed with visible relief, but in the next moment he was holding Kurou's shoulders and whispering comfortingly just beside the taller youth's ear.

Saeki smirked to himself.

Engel watched them silently.

They were good boys, Engel knew that well. Certainly, they were better men than he was, but he wondered sometimes if he had led them the right way. He never pressured them to sell their bodies, and he never let them sleep with any customer who wasn't already a trusted regular and who hadn't had a clean health record, but the fact was that they did service other men. It wasn't because of money- as hypocritical and unbelievable as that may sound. Engel had quite a bit saved up from his earlier professional days, and if he ever ran short, well, that roguish Akiyoshi would be more than happy to step in where he had been firmly kept out. He had been a boy just like them in his younger days (just a little grimier around the edges), and he knew that reassuring sense that you got even as you were pawed by some greasy fingered patron- the raw need made you feel wanted; needed.

He never had the confidence that he could fill the void for his boys, but the way Kurou behaved, always looking out for little brothers to protect, made Engel wonder if he should have started a family instead of a shop. Akiyoshi would readily approve too, of course, he'd want to send those "kids" of his to some boarding school so that "mum" could stay at home and keep "dad" company beneath the sheets.

"Where, where am I?"

The new voice that broke the silence drew four surprised gazes that focused on the pale, disoriented expression on the young man's face. Lavender eyes swept over each of them with bewilderment, dark silken bangs framing them in wariness. His eyes seemed to stop on Saeki, before Kurou stepped up to him, hands open and raised in a sign of truce.

"Don't worry, you are somewhere safe." Kurou slowly and cautiously assured as he stopped his approach three steps before the risen youth.

"Safe?" Watanuki echoed in a brittle tone.

"Kurou found you collapsed in an alley," Engel explained, drawing those bright eyes to him as he pointed to the boy who now hovered concernedly over their latest charge. "I'm Engel, and these are Saeki and Keiki. Don't worry about who we are for now, just know that you're safe here."

The boy shook his head slowly. "No, no. How long have I been here? I have to leave-" He made as if to rise, but Kurou lunged forward only barely managing to stop himself from grabbing the boy's stunned frame.

"You can't! It's dangerous for you, isn't it?"

"We heard about what happened." Keiki began. "Your parents- ah! Sorry…"

The slipping tears made Keiki flush with belated regret, but Watanuki's voice was calm when he spoke.

"You have to tell me how long I've been here. You could all be in danger."

"What kind of danger?" Saeki wanted to know, pale brown eyes wide with curiosity.

Watanuki watched the young teen with some hesitance before burying his forehead in his cupped hands, his dark hair flowing between his fingers. "You wouldn't believe me," he replied heavily, as if the words were a stone coffin lid that sealed the truth away.

"But that means you're in danger too right?" Engel demanded, his green eyes narrowing gently as Kurou turned desperately pleading eyes towards him. "Is it something the police can help with?"

"No, it's- it's ok. I can manage it-" Watanuki assured, but Engel interrupted him.

"Are there any relatives or friends you can contact?"

"No, but-"

"Then you're staying here." Engel decided, smiling slightly as Kurou exhaled with relief.

"I-" Watanuki protested but Engel folded his arms firmly before him.

"At least until you get back on your feet. I'm not a prison warden, but I'm not gonna just send a helpless kid out there to die!"

Keiki only looked on with indecision as he watched the haunted gaze in Watanuki eyes.

"Saeki'll go get the peaches!" Saeki chirped in a sudden buoyant mood, sweeping out of the room.

"I'll go make something hot for you to drink. Cocoa should be fine, right?" Engel added, following Saeki out, humming as he went.

"Peaches?" Watanuki murmured confusedly.

"You were asking for peaches… in your sleep." Kurou answered distractedly as he scrutinized Watanuki. "How are you feeling?"

"You… were watching me?" Watanuki wanted to know. His dry lips were shaking, and his eyes slightly unfocused. Kurou draped the back of his hand against the youth's forehead and frowned. It was Keiki who made the reply.

"All night. He carried you in too, last night."

"You're still running a fever." Kurou accused unhappily. "You should be resting some more. Don't talk about leaving till you're better, ok?"

"Don't mind him." Keiki advised as he settled along the edge of the bed. "Kurou's always had this big-brother thing that he likes to do. He's a typical nice guy though."

"Is that a complaint or a compliment; I can't make it out." Kurou remarked while he tried to persuade Watanuki's body to lie back down.

"A day… can I risk… that much?" Watanuki murmured abruptly, his focus flowing rudderless in the haze of his exhaustion.

"…I'm sure you can," Keiki replied with a helpless grin for Kurou who was watching him with a knowing smile, "and don't you let anyone tell you otherwise."

* * *

TBC


	5. Dinner Reservations

The good news is I've sat for the last examinations of my life. The bad, I probably failed two of them, at least.

Enjoy.

* * *

Dinner Reservations

* * *

The aromatic fumes of coffee and alcohol that Keiki so loved, were being overpowered by the sharp scent of Southeast Asian cuisine.

"Keiki-kun another bowl of those Siamese Noodles please!"

"Coming right up!"

"Keiki! Another dozen of those grilled spicy fish mousse!"

"A dozen _otak-otak _coming right up, sir."

"Irish Coffee for me!"

"I'll be right back with your order."

With that, the harassed youth disappeared behind the kitchen doors, missing the grin Engel had for him as the Master of the coffee-pub reached for the Irish whisky. Veiling soft green eyes with contentedly lowered lids, the Caucasian man murmured quietly to himself above the muffled whining from behind the shut doors.

"I might get used to this."

* * *

"The orders?" Kurou had asked Keiki who stood slumped against the doors as if he didn't want to go back out there.

With a frosty look for the taller youth, Keiki grabbed the order slips from the pocket of his black waist apron.

"I'm so sorry Keiki-san, I didn't mean to keep Kurou-san here…" A concerned Watanuki apologized while he sweated above an electric grill lined with pockets made out of slender banana leaves steadily browning as they smoked. His quick fingers darted between each pocket, checking to see if the bright orange savoury fish paste in them were done.

Keiki watched Kurou handle the uncooked vermicelli in a deep sieve, lowering into a pot of boiling water on the stove. Sighing, he read them the orders before stuffing the crumpled slips into a steel mixing bowl already heaping with older orders.

"It's great that Master's got a lot more customers lately, but I haven't had a customer order _me_ for a change ever since Watanuki-kun became the head chef- ah but I'm not blaming you or anything Watanuki-kun, so don't go rushing to apologize." Keiki added noting Watanuki's dismayed alarm.

"It's good though, isn't it?" Kurou pointed out as he stirred the noodles with a pair of chopsticks. "This feels more rewarding than waving your butt in front of strange men doesn't it?"

Watanuki was grateful that his face was already flushed from the radiated heat of the grill.

"That's not the point!" Keiki growled. "It's an identity crisis here, an identity crisis! I'm not used to wearing an apron with my clothes on!"

"Eh?" The wordless question slipped out of Watanuki's suspicious confusion.

"Eh?" Keiki echoed in surprise. "You've never heard of an apron being one of the basic fantasies for a man's romance? Aprons, bunny suits and nurse uniforms?"

"Ju-just about the nu-nurse outfits," Watanuki replied red-faced, his gaze averted to the grilling _otak-otak_.

Kurou carefully drained the noodles and slid them into a bowl of steaming vividly red spicy-sweet soup. "Keiki started liking aprons because Master wears them during work hours." The older youth announced.

When Watanuki raised his gaze to Keiki's he found the waiter awkwardly avoiding him. "Ooooooooh, you're going to regret you said that," Keiki declared, blushing despite his flustered annoyance. "Taichirou-san was just asking after you, and he's had three Irish Coffees, fourth one coming up." As Kurou paled, Keiki turned to Watanuki and explained. "Taichirou-san has this one-sided thing going on with Kurou… but the thing is, he has a brother complex too! It's too funny to see Kurou play the little brother!"

"He's really nice," Kurou admitted, "but I don't feel the same way. He spends the night, but he never mnn… does anything, except talk- and he insists on paying."

"And then you feel guilty about it for the next three days," Keiki added with an exasperated grin.

"Because he's really nice," Kurou murmured as he added the garnish. "So nice it's cruel."

"I know what you mean." Watanuki supplied with a timid smile as Keiki watched him with interest. Before the evening's waiter could comment, Kurou pushed a tray of the spicy noodles across the counter toward him.

"Send this out first." The raven-haired youth ordered. Keiki revealed only a moment's hesitation before he smiled and picked up a clean tray.

"That Saeki," he started abruptly, "I haven't seen him all day today- is he sick or skiving?"

"Dunno." Kurou admitted. "I tried checking on him just a while ago, but he didn't say anything when I knocked. Could just be one of those days."

"One of those days, huh…" Keiki repeated distantly. "Better leave it to Master then… Watanuki-kun?"

Both boys turned to their young guest chef who had been following their quiet conversation with a fretful frown. Watanuki tried to recover from his slip with a weak smile.

"It's nothing… I just hope everything's alright with Saeki-san." He explained.

"Pffft. Don't waste your time worrying about him, he bounces back like a SuperBall." Keiki advised as he pushed the door open with his shoulder, the clink and chatter of the diners lingering for a brief moment after the waiter had left.

"It's got nothing to do with you being here." Kurou added softly, seemingly focused on soaking the used dishes.

"I know; thank you." Watanuki murmured back, but he hadn't been worried about that. _'Saeki... I can't sense him in the house right now… he couldn't be… he…'_

_

* * *

_

The cramped darkness of the dank alleyway was more oppressive than it would have been on any other night.

Something watched him. Before? Behind? He could sense the threatening malevolence… and the fear. The certain knowledge of this aberration that it was abhorred by the natural order… and that Doumeki was an executor of that order's inviolable dictates.

His Sundered Vajra hummed with excitement, eager to manifest in its true form. Gripping the short wooden rod capped at each end with four sharp-tipped prongs arched around a central pillar, Doumeki raised his weapon before his chest as his lids lowered meditatively.

Where was the demon? It had every intention of staying, his Sundered Vajra told him that much, but the accursed creature held too weak an aura to have a proper core he could locate. Probably flitting in an out of the astral plane to this physical one. Damn.

It was moments like these that it became particularly trying to deal with the humiliation of being the only senior priest with no aptitude for astral vision, his family name notwithstanding.

"Hundred-eyes-ghost, huh?" He murmured self-mockingly, but a smug grin was already spreading across his lips. "Though, I don't have to see you to hit you-"

Golden power blossomed deep within amber eyes, calling the power in his weapon. As his feet readied in practised position, the Sundered Vajra responded, resonating with a shuddering strength in the same gilded light as the central pillars on either end lengthened and arched back into elegant wooden crescents, the Vajra now the centre of a blessed bow.

The Sundered Vajra- so named because the limbs of the summoned bow broke the perfect Vajra.

The bow pulsed urgently in his grip, but Doumeki remained impassive.

"Don't worry," he whispered to it, "I've set up a barrier with sanctified salt; it's not leaving this alley." Together with the fact that escape to the astral realm had been blocked now that the Sundered Vajra was in its true form, the wraith was cornered.

Readying the grip on his bow with his left hand, his right hand made as if to hook against an invisible bowstring. Invisible? No, not quite. Like quicksilver running down spider silk, the fiery silver gleam played between the grip of his fingers. Facing straight ahead as if he could finally see his quarry, he raised the bow above his head with ritualized preparation.

Of course, he still couldn't see his target, but it was only the novice that aimed for a target. The more informed archer would know that it was the purest form that would yield the truest aim. But even that knowledge only stopped at form- if perfect harmony with absolute nature could be achieved in spiritual essence, then where did the archer end and the target begin? If one harmonized with nature, then of what need was there to aim anywhere else but within that all-encompassing One's Self? There was no need to aim towards; there were only flows and ebbs on which to ride.

His consciousness expanded to the cracks in the damp pavement and the faint echoes of night's whispers, to the rhythm of the pulses of life and the shades of presence. Lowering the bow as his arms widened purposefully drawing the ethereal string back, an arrow of moonlight coalesced at eye level, drawn back further till it swirled just below his cheekbone. His mind touched every eddying breath, pressing against the pregnant moment as the floating possibilities danced along a single edge… and- fell!

Light exploded with crushing force, flattening the very air against the straining confines of the hastily erected barrier. The thickened darkness shuddered in the grip of the holy strike, trembling once, twice, before a silent anguish ripped through it. Shadows, shredded and empty cascaded about the Shinto priest as the thinning waves of light faded and Doumeki's consciousness filtered back into the singular present.

Blinking back into self-consciousness, he noted with waking dullness that the Sundered Vajra had returned to its dormant form.

"Weak." Doumeki remarked blandly, though his tone belied his disappointment. Small fry like these were mere scouts, not nearly strong enough to materialize in the physical plane and tear bodies into bloody ribbons, but just strong enough to siphon the life force of the weak willed. If he had learned anything about the city, it was that it was full of people battered by the whims of capitalist tyranny and lulled by the false freedom of bewildering consumption. Rich hunting ground for such wraiths.

The past week had been little different from tonight. After that first morning of reconnoitring with Kouichi as a dispirited guide, he had spent every other morning while the college student was away at classes divining the possible danger spots, and the nights having an increasingly impatient Kouichi lead him to those locations. After Kouichi had collapsed on the first hunt from the intensity of Doumeki's banishing spell, the Shinto priest had assigned the older youth to guard duty, out of harms way while he did the make-work of diverting unwanted attention. In truth, for such a small space, Doumeki had enough power to dissuade any notice from the average pedestrian.

Yet, Doumeki wasn't sure if Kouichi was the only one doing make-work. His hunts seemed little more than an exercise in futility, as far as catching the trail of the demonic murderers and their likely master, the Doe-eyed Asura, was concerned. Night after night, he exorcised the strays while the jungle cats prowled with disdainful freedom, their bright eyes searching for the next victims.

It would be upon his head if he let any more innocent bystanders get hurt.

"I'm the one who's supposed to end this, after all…" Doumeki's whisper dropped heavily into the chilly solitude of the walled gap.

* * *

"Guard duty!" Kouichi spat under his breath. "Like some noob recruit in a training camp. I give up the triplets, a depressed trainee nurse and the yoga club's instructor three nights in a row for _this_?" He balefully watched the unheeding pedestrians who either were in various states of inebriation, or were determined to find their way there.

He didn't buy that religious mumbojumbo about how his weak aura had been overwhelmed by some spell. Who wouldn't faint after roaming the city for several sleepless nights, his brief naps visited by that macabre scene in his restless dreaming?

Yet, there had been _something_ then. Kouichi couldn't quite say what it was, but if he had to describe it, he had felt… a psychic gravity of some sort, as if something had slammed on his mind, collapsing all his thoughts in a sudden fall.

"I'm just cranky 'cause I haven't been getting any." He admitted aloud. He hadn't been the only surly one. Though Doumeki had never been one to smile unless it came with a sneer, the priest had grown more brisk. Regardless of whether the university student subscribed to the whole notion of divine power, he could respect the frustration the young Shinto priest grappled with. He himself wanted justice for those victims. He had studied their photos in the papers the other day, and as laughably naïve as it had been, he came to the conclusion that they looked like good people, certainly undeserving of the fate that had befallen them.

"I hope the bastard hangs." He swore viciously.

"What's biting you?"

"Dou-?" But it wasn't Doumeki. Kouichi had known that even before he had turned about with that instinctive response. Pale brown eyes and hair the colour of milk tea glowed with a subdued lustre that sent Kouichi's gaze over them again in an appreciative sweep.

"My daddy's always told me that if something bothers you, it's better to share it with a friend." That same honeyed innocence purred suggestively, prompting Kouichi to return his gaze to the glossy playful pout from his survey of the tight baby blue midriff-baring shirt and the supple sway of a smoothly toned abdomen above faded blue denims. The boy couldn't have been older than fourteen, but the way he poised his hips suggested to Kouichi that they could teach _him_ a thing or two.

Overcoming his initial shock, he mentally kicked himself. Of course he'd be propositioned by a dude, he was waiting around along the streets of freakin' Ni-choume! "Look lil' bro, no offence but, I don't swing that way."

The boy only grinned as he lightly clasped Kouichi's defensively raised palms, his thumbs stroking their sensitive cores.

"Hey!" Kouichi warned, jerking his hands away… or telling himself he had to. A weird sensation coiled somewhere along his back, heavy but not unpleasant, dissuading him from altering anything that might result in the loss of the feeling. If he didn't know better, he would have thought that he was aroused.

"Hey~" The boy called, light brown eyes gleaming hazily in Kouichi's unfocused gaze. "Share it with me?"

"Share… what?" Kouichi mumbled, distantly aware of the guilt looming just behind all the fog.

A saccharine smile that promised anything but innocence met his expectant question. Slowly, those cherry red lips framed his forbidden thoughts, mischief twinkling in those large eyes.

"Your…"

But what it was, he never got to hear. A burst of searing heat exploded from his chest, and the shock sent him gasping in bewilderment. A piercing flare of light blinded him, but even that agony ceased to matter as that familiar weight made all thought too painful to hold, and the onrushing oblivion became all the more welcoming.

* * *

TBC


	6. Salted Coffee

A/N: Lately, I can't help but feel dispirited over many things. I think I need a proper holiday, just not so sure how to go about having one. Anyway, enjoy.

* * *

Salted Coffee

* * *

Consciousness came like the morning after a wild party, throbbing and not in the good places. Kouichi groaned piteously as he struggled to pry open lids amidst the explosion of multicoloured stars in the darkness he had woken up to.

"Finally." Bridling at the unwelcome arrogance in that toneless voice he knew too well, a hot retort leapt to mind, but his aching body was too limp to care.

"What… happened?" Kouichi asked instead, draping a hand over his eyes as he tried to forestall squeamish thoughts of what he was lying in. Hopefully, not his own puke.

"... I don't really know." Doumeki admitted overhead, and Kouichi only grunted when the younger man cupped his cheek with a comfortingly warm hand. "You seem fine. But the amulet I gave you-"

"The wha-?" Kouichi blurted, not at all willing to use his brain for the moment.

"The Halite amulet- basically salt crystal. Its natural purity was reinforced with divine power to protect you from demons." Doumeki patiently explained.

"That smoky cube?" Kouichi mumbled weakly.

"It's gone." Doumeki informed him.

"So? We have lots of salt at home." Kouichi dismissed distractedly as he tried to gather his fragmented thoughts.

Doumeki sighed softly. "It was made of salt purified on sacred grounds, formed in blessed water and a whole day of devout prayer."

"Oh… sorry." Kouichi muttered, uncertain of what else he could say. Was that the odour of dried pee?

"You don't understand, Kouichi. It was _attached _to you, spiritually. It couldn't be taken off… unless by someone with some considerable skill or power. You have to tell me what you can remember." Doumeki demanded.

"I… j'- was just…" Kouichi trailed off in confused incoherence. It hurt to think, but the truth was that an image _was_ forming in Kouichi's head, but the picture being built was not at all something he was inclined to share with Doumeki.

Soft brown eyes and a touch that ran like a stirring current within him. That gay prostitute… that _underaged _gay prostitute… and he had almost said yes…

"I'm sorry." Doumeki apologized in an abrupt gentleness that surprised Kouichi before he could sink into relief. "Can you get up, or should I carry you?"

"Touch me and I'll punch you!" Kouichi hissed in panic, knowing the Shinto priest well enough to realize that the taller youth wouldn't spare a second thought about carrying him piggyback all the way back to their apartment.

"Then I'll help you up?" Doumeki asked offering a hand before Kouichi's wary gaze.

Sighing, Kouichi accepted the hand, gasping as he was hoisted up in one smooth motion, his unsteady footing conveniently tripping him against the sturdy support Doumeki offered. Tugging Kouichi's arm about his shoulders, Doumeki held Kouichi's waist to balance the man.

"What're you doing!" Kouichi snapped, self-consciously scanning the strangely disinterested crowd as he fought to hide his discomfort.

"Your steps are weak." Doumeki noted, ignoring Kouichi's protest. "Your breathing still irregular. The amulet is gone. …Were you attacked?"

"What're you talking… unh… about?" Kouichi struggled to say while the grip Doumeki had on him sapped him of his strength. Only his closest friends knew how sensitive his sides were, and they knew well enough to leave them alone if they wanted to avoid any embarrassing misunderstandings. "Only I… ngh… do the attacking."

Doumeki ignored the weak attempt at wit as well. "Do you remember anything? Sudden brightness or darkness? A creeping chill or warmth…"

The firm pressure in his vulnerable spot was making it harder to muster the sarcasm Kouichi intended. "A bright light… and heat from my chest…" When they stopped abruptly, Kouichi hastily reasoned his answer. "You see and feel a lot of weird things before you black out, and maybe the kid swiped the amulet thinking it was valuable."

"Kid?" Doumeki repeated, amber eyes widening with rare surprise before narrowing harshly. "Kouichi, what happened exactly? Tell me everything." The Shinto priest's agitation tightened his grip on Kouichi's side.

"Hngh! You… idiot!" Kouichi hissed, though tears seeded at the corner of his eyes.

"What's the matter?" Doumeki wanted to know as he scanned the undergraduate's reddened face. "Does it hurt somewhere?"

Kouichi would sooner die than admit that Doumeki was digging into a powerfully erogenous zone for him. "Can we… sit down somewhere first?" He requested instead. Doumeki watched him wordlessly for a moment, but he nodded, his features softening.

"How do you feel about coffee?" He asked, readjusting his hold much to Kouichi's secret relief.

"Caffeine'd be nice." Kouichi replied agreeably, resting more easily now against his support.

* * *

Where that flaming light had scorched him, the pain was excruciating. The burnt sockets where his eyes had been oozed with blackened blood, the nauseating stench of burnt flesh taunting his horror. If he could have screamed, the very concrete would crack with his agony, but he didn't dare use his vocal cords. His body felt alarmingly _liquid _inside, as if the crafted body was dissolving from within.

'_You can reassemble this, you can build it back again.' _He chanted over and over again in his mind, but the mere effort of holding on to the seams of his suit of flesh seared like blessed iron in his cursed soul.

Weeping, he turned unseeing eyes to the subdued aura of the forbidden fruit. It was suicide, the sweet nectar was known for its prickly shell… but there was no other way.

* * *

When the greeting bell at the front door chimed, Watanuki raised his eyes to the intervening kitchen wall that blocked the new arrivals from his view. He hadn't heard the bell- the kitchen door was firmly shut and Kurou was deep-frying some meat and potato patties. That pure aura that just dawned in the doorway, however, was louder than a church choir on Christmas Eve.

Like a diamond glinting in muck. In a city that fed on corruption, even the crudest spiritual talent would notice such unsullied and unrelenting purity.

Yet this wasn't a time for him to marvel. People with power noticed others of their ilk, mainly because if they weren't prey or predators, they were competition. It was usually good manners to meet face-to-face and declare a kind of truce, but Watanuki wasn't quite ready to announce his non-deadness to a room full of unverified potential threats. For all he knew, that pure aura might be an agent of some darker power- or a self-righteous exorcist come to slay him before the demons claimed their prize. Whichever it was, Engel and the other guys, not to mention the diners, might get seriously hurt.

'_And let's face it, you don't want to let yourself get hurt most of all, you selfish hypocrite.'_ Watanuki viciously admitted to himself.

He was cloaked, sheathed in an artificial field of elemental balance that offset his particular "aura signature". He had to hope it would be enough… except that clean auras like the one that just entered, were known for piercing through such deceptions.

…

Reflexively, he reached out with his mind to the nine Seal Daggers he kept just within reach in the astral plane, hesitated, then carefully eased about the tenth… No, should the holder of the pure aura prove hostile, he would be long gone before the need to use the tenth as a weapon ever arose.

* * *

In the wary silence that ensued, Keiki could just hear the whispers hissing from the newcomers' table.

"_A gay bar? Seriously?" _The smaller, pale-faced man demanded, dark eyes darting nervously between nervous glances about the shop and pointed looks at his friend.

"_It says 'café' at the entrance." _His sturdier friend countered blandly, amber eyes calmly reading the menu Keiki had just offered the pair a moment ago.

"_It also says, 'if you have to ask for the menu, you're missing the point'!" _The twitchy man shot back.

"_But the waiter gave us one anyway." _

"_Gah! Just don't come bitching to me when some homo in tight leather starts grabbing your crotch."_

"_Hmm… 'El Diablo' sounds interesting…"_

Clearing his throat, the hovering waiter drew the gazes of the two men, one wide and wary, the other mild but attentive.

"If I might make a recommendation Sir, El Diablo is a little strong, so it's best to have something with it. Fortunately, a colleague of mine has been taking some cooking lessons in Southeast Asian cuisine and his grilled spicy fish paste has been rather popular." Keiki offered with a professional smile.

"Your colleague… back there?" The placid young man gestured toward the doors to the kitchen.

"Yes." Keiki promptly replied a little bemused.

"I will sample his cooking." He announced while he returned the menu, his gaze drawn once more to the kitchen doors.

Keiki followed the steady gaze in puzzlement before an awkward growl caught his attention.

"I'll er… have the same thing, alright?" The nervous one mumbled gruffly, trying his best to avoid eye contact. It was all Keiki could do not to roll his eyes.

"Right, Sir." He chirped pleasantly, doing a Saeki. Where was that boy anyway? A movement at the corner of his gaze caught his attention, and the world was perfect once more.

'_Engel-sama…'_

Those beautiful green eyes beckoned to him behind a charming pale gold fringe. Without hesitating, he swept his way up to the heavenly image, sakura petals cascading about him as he ran- slowly so he wouldn't crash into the counter. Pressing his heaving chest against the edge of the black marble countertop, he raised the glittering wonderment in the depth of his eyes to the contemporary Ganymedes.

"Yes, Master?" Keiki purred as Engel surveyed the smitten adoration, cruelly clueless.

"Are they going to be any trouble, 'coz I can…" The owner subtly suggested.

"Oh, the taller one's probably just come out and's out experimenting- the other's still a closet." Keiki dismissed unconcernedly. "Master, are you wearing cologne?"

"No, there's no point, you wouldn't be able to smell it amidst the coffee and liquor fumes anyway. So you're sure you're ok with handling them?" Engel wanted to confirm.

"They just want a couple servings of El Diablo and that addictive fish paste thing." Keiki assured more soberly and in an undertone. "It's odd though, we don't usually get young, good-looking guests like them."

"That's- that's weird, huh?" Engel agreed a little too hastily, his cheeks turning a delicate pink.

Saeki would have smirked, Kurou would have puzzled quietly, but Keiki-

'_Kyaa-! Engel-sama!'_

With that happy thought blossoming shamelessly in his mind, Keiki disappeared behind the flapping kitchen doors.

"Because that stupid Akiyoshi is a paranoid jealous nutcase- posting his men just to drive away guys that are my type..." Engel grumbled to himself, though a gentle smile had joined the scarlet rose in his cheeks.

* * *

Watanuki nearly hurled the banana leaf pocket he was filling in surprise as the thick doors burst open. When Keiki emerged all smiles, the door swinging shut behind him, he relaxed but tried to back away from the brief line of sight available through the momentary gap between the door panels.

There was the usual playful banter between Kurou and Keiki, but Watanuki found his heart pounding as he felt the pure aura pulse with growing intensity. Had it noticed him? Should he run now while he had the chance, or was he jumping the gun?

"Watanuki-kun?"

Jolting back into the real word, he found Keiki and Kurou watching him concernedly.

"You look pale." Kurou observed as he walked over and rested the back of his cool hand against Watanuki's forehead. "Hot."

"No, I'm fine, I've just been too close to the grill-" Watanuki reassured. But Keiki cut him off.

"-cooking all day. You shouldn't be exerting yourself just yet. You've only just recovered." He chided gently.

"But we still have orders… don't we?" Watanuki lifted questioning lavender eyes to Keiki's hesitant expression.

"Fresh meat just walked in with an order of two servings of the fish paste thing. It was kind of my idea…" Keiki admitted. "Still, you shouldn't-"

"I think I could do the orders. I've been watching you for a while." Kurou offered quietly.

"I'll be fine, Kurou-san. You've been helping me all night as it is." Watanuki replied with a weak smile. "I should at least do this myself."

"But-" Kurou protested, brows furrowing unhappily.

"I'll take a nap right after this order. I promise." Watanuki swiftly manoeuvred, though he hadn't any real intention of doing anything like that, not when a threat loomed so close. Kurou still seemed undecided.

"We'll just leave it at that, alright?" Keiki concluded for them. "I'll ask Master to make this the last order so Watanuki-kun can get some rest."

"I suppose." Kurou reluctantly relented as he turned to Watanuki, watching those downcast lavender eyes cloak their light within brooding shadows. "Just don't feel like you have to shoulder everything on your own."

Watanuki's hollow smile was not at all reassuring.

* * *

TBC


	7. The Seal of Reformation: Ka

A/N: A lot has happened lately. Some good, some bad, some just confusing. I think that I can be here putting this chapter up should mean something in all of the chaos.

Do enjoy.

* * *

The Seal of Reformation: Ka 

* * *

Doumeki's amber eyes flickered with a distracted light. It wasn't the sweet-scented coffee he had imbibed in liberal amounts- no, he had always been able to hold his liquor, and in any case, had trained well in neutralizing toxins in his body. Instead, it was the nagging feeling that he had missed something, something too important to ignore. Yet, he couldn't put his finger on it. It was the height of frustration.

"What are you pouting about now~?" A somewhat glazed-eyed young man drawled opposite him. They had had the same number of alcoholic coffees, but Kouichi was already limp and loosened, ironically the state that the undergrad claimed he preferred his women to be in. Doumeki wasn't judging, but it was mildly amusing. "I said 'm sorry 'bout the amulet." Kouichi slurred in mild annoyance.

"You're drunk." Doumeki noted blandly.

"Duh! D' y' think I could've told you all that _sober_?" The older youth retorted as he combed his hair back, eyes suddenly more lucid and afraid. "I don't know what came over me." He admitted in a bare whisper. "He was just a kid- and a guy."

Doumeki's impatient sigh provoked a sharp glare from the downcast youth. Undaunted, the Shinto priest matched it with a sombre gaze.

"You worry over the most insignificant of things, you could've died then, had it not been for the amulet." Doumeki informed him, but Kouichi only growled exasperatedly.

"You and your- that whore probably took it thinking it was valuable. There's no demon, no monster lurking the streets in Shinjuku!"

"Then how do you explain the light you saw, and the heat?" Doumeki persisted with a sharp look.

"The drug that gay bitch used to knock me out- who cares! Look, I get that you're a priest and all, but I just don't buy into any of this, alright?" Kouichi snapped, his voice rising heatedly before he remembered where he was. Feeling the stares of the half-empty café upon them, he sighed gustily and turned an awkward gaze towards the impassive young priest. "I'm sorry. I'm just… taking it out on you…"

"You're tired. It's understandable- I didn't stop to think that all this must be harder to endure when you can't perceive what purpose your efforts are serving." Doumeki calmly conceded.

"I can see that you care, though, enough to spend all that time- I know you barely rest… I'm just saying… you're serious about this… and I can respect that." Kouichi softly admitted, his reddening cheeks marring his solemn front.

"You're a hazard to yourself when you're drunk." Doumeki observed in the inexorable monotone that Kouichi knew he would come to miss when the priest finally returned to his mountain shrine, along with that offhanded kindness.

"But I do have a confession of my own." Doumeki added, drawing a surprised glance from Kouichi who had been staring wistfully into the contents of his cup. "Regardless of the cause, it is my responsibility that you were placed in danger today, so-"

"Wait." Kouichi interrupted. "If you're telling me that I should stop coming along for your trips, you can stop right there."

Doumeki studied him with faint bemusement. "Didn't you say you don't believe in demons and all that?"

"I don't. Not really," Kouichi agreed, "but my dad asked me to look after you, and he'll be pissed to know I left you to roam the streets all alone."

"But these streets seem a lot more dangerous for you." Doumeki pointed out. "If the next drugging homosexual prostitute does anything to you while you're unconscious…"

"You-!" Kouichi began in a snarl but stopped when he noticed the mischievous twinkle in the younger man's eyes. Shaking his head in surrender, he reaffirmed the understanding between them. "So I'm following you."

Doumeki seemed to ponder this. When his eyes cleared resolutely, his reply was firm. "No." His raised hand forestalled Kouichi's protest. "Not for now. There might be something… unexpected… I don't know what exactly, so there's no point asking."

"You're finally on to something and I'm being cut out?" Kouichi demanded incredulously.

"Yes, at least until I know what we're up against." Doumeki replied quietly. When Kouichi seemed as if he wanted to press the issue further, Doumeki only shook his head.

"It's not-"

'_Chrin-ching-chring-'_

Doumeki stopped abruptly, eyes suddenly alert and wary. His concern was reflected in Kouichi's expression that tightened in half-suspecting awareness.

"You heard that too?" Doumeki demanded a little surprised, though most of his focus had spread to their immediate surroundings.

…_Demons? But not anywhere nearby…_

"Heard what?" Kouichi asked back, his furrowed brows rising in intrigued confusion. "No, I didn't hear-" His confirmation was interrupted by a soft grunt from the young man before him.

'_Chrin-ching-chring-'_

"You heard it again." Kouichi stated, watching the Shinto priest's arms slowly drift away from the table to his sides, readying for action. The young priest's bright amber eyes flicked their sombre attention back to the undergraduate.

"Stay here." Doumeki brusquely instructed, his eyes flashing warningly.

"Dou-doumeki-" Kouichi attempted to protest, but his words were wrenched from his mind as the world twisted and pulsed before his eyes. "Wha-"

"Kouichi? Kouichi!"

Unlike the sudden weight that Kouichi had recently experienced, there was only a wave of intense dizziness rippling madly across his vision before the swallowing oblivion…

Moving quickly, Doumeki caught the university student before he collapsed over their coffee cups. All around him, dull thuds and the crash and clink of tableware drew his attention away from the slumped youth to the unsettling scene of limp bodies strewn about the café.

Adjusting his hold, Doumeki felt for Kouichi's pulse, his breath flowing out in a relieved sigh when the priest was rewarded with the throbbing beats against his fingertips. Setting the man back against his seat, Doumeki left his own and checked the nearest two customers… both were in similar states of forced slumber.

'_Chrin-chrin-'_

That blasted sound! Where was it coming from? His Sundered Vajra hummed in recognition of the demonic handiwork, but it detected no immediate infernal presence. Instead, the carefully hidden aura he had discovered from the beginning became a beacon for his widely scouring attention- a red herring; and he found his consciousness circling around the concealed practitioner behind the polished kitchen doors.

His caution sheathed in the firm set of his shoulders, Doumeki walked steadily up to the bulky, mirror bright doors, curiosity and apprehension clutching in the deep centre of his heart. Hands twitching in brief hesitation, he shoved his misgivings aside and pushed against the doors-

"Ah!"

A cry of surprise, high but distinctly male- boyish. Doumeki's venture was stopped short against the resisting pressure pushing back against his thrust, and a soft grunt of surprise escaped him.

Was the boy pushing back against the doors to deny him entry? While Doumeki wasn't surprised to be refused an audience with the mysterious practitioner, he hadn't expected such a barefaced and simplistic response. The five or six spiritual counterattack plans drawn tightly in the Shinto priest's mind now snapped uselessly before the naïve defence. He half expected the boy to say something, but there was only the sound of his nervous breaths escaping through the tiny breached gap between the doors. Doumeki could briefly make out some dark-coloured clothing and the teasing glimpses of fair skin, but nothing more. Doumeki exhaled resignedly before he spoke.

"You're- you're not responsible for this." A statement, not a question. The absent culprit was a demon, there was no doubt, and if that was its controller inside, he was unbelievably unguarded.

"Ev-everyone outside-?" That tremulous concern asked urgently.

"Unconscious." Doumeki answered briefly. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. My colleague suddenly fainted- but he just works here; not a practitioner." That voice explained.

Doumeki nodded, before remembering that his mysterious interlocutor would probably have missed the gesture.

"The bells-" That voice began unexpectedly, "you heard them?"

"The source isn't anywhere nearby." Doumeki replied.

"It's probably somewhere further off from here…" The voice agreed, but there was an unspoken doubt at the end of it.

"…but it could be a ruse to lead me away from here." Doumeki finished for him. "It knows I'm here." The practitioner within seemed to agree with the observation in silence.

"What is it after?" The voice asked breaking the pensive pause.

"The usual things- souls… human flesh." Doumeki answered distantly, his mind probing further ahead for some clue of which direction he should take. If there was a demon out there hurting people, he had to go… only…

"If I go," Doumeki began suddenly, "the people here-"

"I will protect them." The voice promptly assured. I can set up barriers and do minor exorcisms. "I'll buy you some time until you can return to deal with whatever it is… if this is a trap." When Doumeki didn't reply, the voice went on. "I understand that it's difficult to trust a stranger you've just met, but these people here… the bar Master, my colleagues… they're important to me… I wouldn't-"

"I understand." Doumeki interrupted suddenly. "I appreciate your assistance."

Doumeki didn't quite understand it, but an irksome guilt was creeping into his senses, as if he had just bullied someone. Brushing the thought away, he focused on the more important issue at hand. Whether or not it was a ruse, the demon had to be hunted down before it grew impatient and found other hapless victims.

"I'll leave these people to you." Doumeki brusquely declared, and without waiting for a response, stepped briskly toward and past the entrance of the shop, the chill of the night prickling against his surging adrenalin.

* * *

The greeting bell's frantic chime and the rapidly receding sense of the pure aura told Watanuki that the exorcist had gone. Even then, his body still shook with the parched fever that was part fear, part anxiety. Every instinct in his body screamed for him to run. He could still remember the burst of mangled flesh sprayed against the dining room walls, and the terror gurgling within his throat choked with bile as grief tore through the rest of his consciousness.

"Shou-san… Kyousuke-san…" Watanuki gasped as he tried to contain a sob, the crushing agony of their memory stabbing into his chest. The young couple had been so very much in love… Shou unabashedly warm and loving, Kyousuke calm on the surface with deeply raging currents within… both opening their hearts to a homeless wanderer as if he were their own child… the one they could never have, they had told him. He wanted so much to apologize to them… but he couldn't allow it… because he had known all along what might have happened… back when he had greedily accepted their embrace, he had known all along.

He had had enough of all the running, had grown so weary, but those _things_ had reminded him of why he had run away in the first place. Blood more than his tears could wash, more than his arms could contain, drowning everything.

So when Engel had extended his invitation, even then a panicked voice inside had warned him. _Don't accept this! They'll all die! _But his body wouldn't- couldn't move. How could he? Where could he drag his battered body to? Surely he could afford to catch his breath first? At first, he had drowned the urgent warnings within with promises that he wouldn't stay long, that he would leave before he attracted any attention, but had he really meant to keep those promises? Just so simply, so insidiously, those numbing promises turned into white lies… white lies that would be forever stained with dark blood.

No, it was too late to run. Now he had to protect the people who had protected him, graciously, lovingly. Resolve hardened within the depths of violet eyes as the last of his tears spilled out of them. Calling to the power within himself and the nine Seal Daggers in the astral realms, he summoned the mental image of the Nine Cuts Barrier and overlaid the image with his mental picture of the things he wanted to protect- Engel, Kurou, Keiki, and… and… Saeki…? That's right… Saeki had gone out… where was he now? Had that man… that pure aura… had he already-

Watanuki's anxiety was cut into with a sudden tremor as his breath froze with the sudden detected presence- demonic aura. Wait… but this-!

"Sa-Saeki?" Watanuki called out, casting his gaze about the kitchen in vain. "Saeki?" Watanuki called again, gingerly pushing past the kitchen doors to the main dining area beyond. His eyes were immediately drawn to the slumped bodies behind the bar counter.

"Engel-san! Keiki-san!" Watanuki cried in subdued alarm. That he knew they were merely unconscious had little effect on the instinctive distress he felt seeing them strewn carelessly across the carpeted floor in seeming lifelessness.

"_Give me back… give me back my life…" _

A voice- no, a thought echoed with chilling venom in the depths of Watanuki's consciousness. The demon… speaking to him… but this was…

"Saeki?" Watanuki called out uncertainly.

"_You stole it from me… everything was fine before you came…"_

"Saeki, it's you isn't it?" Watanuki demanded, his gaze now cast to the ceiling above as the twilight hued lamps flickered fitfully. "Why did you do this? You're not this kind of… existence; I could tell that from the first day we met."

The demon's… Saeki's thoughts were cold, reverberating in his mind with an inhuman fury that harboured within its depths an insatiable inhuman hunger.

"_You-! You're the one to blame for all of this! Give it back to me! My body! My life here!" _

The shivering clatter of dishes and cups from the bar shelves was only the mere foam upon the waves of icy fury that crashed against Watanuki's consciousness. Wincing, Watanuki reaffirmed his mental grip on the Sealed Daggers with his mind, but stayed his hand.

"Saeki… what happened? Your… most of you is gone." Watanuki whispered quietly. The responding thought was weak and tired.

"_That priest's little lover boy… I hadn't known… I had gone too long without feeding…"_

"So you _do_ feed on-" Watanuki murmured queasily, but Saeki cut him off.

"_On vital energy… my customers… since hundreds of years ago… men… in their beds… that's the only way I can feed… but with you around… I thought it'd be fine if I fed outside…"_

"Your customers would have their life spans shortened," Watanuki reasoned. "You knew it was wrong, that's why you tried to hide it from me." Mocking laughter greeted Watanuki's words.

"_I knew you were just like those hypocrite priests and shamans… condescending over us demons… I have watched many gruesome famines in my long existence… a man would even devour his brother to survive… what is so despicable about consuming the vigour of a man while he consumes me in his lust? Yet you wouldn't understand… though you're more like us demons than any other human."_

Watanuki stiffened as Saeki continued derisively.

"_You're that cursed soul… that forbidden fruit that all the demons lust over… Most demons are mere corruptions of natural or manmade phenomenon- aberrations defying the natural order of the universe, but not you- no, you're special. You're an existence that defies the very nature of the world, an impossibility made flesh and blood. Most demons would have to sustain their corrupted forms by finding a way to feed on the natural order, or risk being consumed by it eventually, but you- you exist like a living paradox, an aberration defying the principles of the natural order but so stable and complete that that order cannot consume you, and is instead threatened by you. A human built as the perfect demon, far more complete than any other corrupted being could ever hope to become, yet unable to truly harness all that demonic potential with that unwaveringly human soul in the way."_

Watanuki could make no rebuttal, his eyes merely narrowing in controlled anguish.

"_So you exist, an exception amongst humans, amongst all creation… a treasure that every demon covets…"_

"Be quiet." Watanuki whispered dangerously, trembling.

"…_a danger to all you come into contact with-"_

"I said be quiet!" Watanuki lashed, the air exploding before him as he suddenly released his grip on the nine blades. Like silver serpents they struck the ground before him with lethal speed, the blinding arc of their trajectories ending in the shuddering hum of more than just impact. Power, fathomless and binding, awoke in each of the seals inscribed within the daggers- Rin, Pyo, Toh, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen- nine sacred seals awakened by an enigmatic spiritual power that only the young Onmyouji possessed.

A scream of futile resistance and dismay tore through Watanuki's consciousness, but his will was unyielding. As the incandescence from the daggers blazed like moon fire, his inexorable summons tore the remnants of Saeki's essence into the magical seal formed by the ring of daggers. Dark shreds, struggling like desperate black eels, were tugged mercilessly into a grotesque clump of demonic matter.

"Is that all of you?" Watanuki couldn't stop himself from exclaiming.

"_-gaaaaaarrrrrrhngh-! You bastard! You-! No-! Don't-!" _

But Watanuki had already summoned the forbidden tenth dagger- except that there was nothing to see but an unnerving distortion of space around the young man's right hand.

"_-you! Nghraaaaaaaaaaaaa! No! Please! I just want to live with these people here! I won't tell anyone about you! No-no! I promise! Please!" _

"Don't worry, it will all be over in an instant." Watanuki promised, the warped space around his right fist raised before his outstretched left palm. "It may sound trite, but this really will hurt me more than it will hurt you."

"_You-!"_

But even Saeki's churning fear and rage faltered before the sudden ripping squelch and burst of blood. Even though Watanuki had been bracing himself for it, as the tenth blade punctured his left hand, a gasp of pain wrenched past his lips. A sharp breath shuddered as the blade was drawn from the mangled flesh, its sinuous outline suddenly visible underneath the dripping sanguine coat.

"I'll need you to show your true form… what's left of it." Watanuki informed the restless blob of dark matter. It wasn't a request. Invisible cords of power dove into the shuddering mass and silent screams echoed in Watanuki's head as a heaving mouth vomiting the protean mess surfaced in the centre of the agitated rippling. As if an invisible hammer punched into the pulsing demonic essence, the writhing side facing the young Onmyouji flattened into a face, the ejected material rapidly wriggling back in a frenzied construction of a head tethered by nothing more than a rubbery thin stem of the sable jelly. Hateful tears filled the eyes that looked at him now through the pathetic remnants of the once tantalizing and deceptively prepubescent Saeki.

"_You can destroy me now… but you cannot run away from your fate… in the end… haha… ahahahaha!" _Saeki swore as Watanuki chanted under his breath.

"Rin, Pyo, Toh, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen! By the nine seals of overcoming all illusions, of mastering all tribulations, I command you to yield your existence in this reality…"

"_Haaaaaaaaah! Nghaaaaaaaaah! Noooo-hah! Plea-please! Ahhhnghaaaaaaaaa-!"_ Saeki screamed, his head thrashing wildly against invisible spiritual bonds as the nine Sealed Daggers flared with a harsh brilliance.

"…and be reformed in mine! Sealed Dagger of Reformation-"

In the terrifying echoes of Saeki's horror, Watanuki blurred in a fluid strike, sinking the blood-sheathed dagger deep into the centre of the demon's forehead.

"-KA!"

* * *

TBC


	8. His Dew on the Bells

A/N: I strongly recommend those who are easily upset by scenes involving rape and strong abusive language to abstain from reading the first part of this chapter as marked by the line separators. In fact, if you think even glimpsing any writing on such a scene may upset you, you may skip this whole chapter, since the important points will be summarised in the following chapter anyway. You may also of course, as you well know, discontinue reading this fic. I hope that if you do choose to read on, you will be mentally prepared for it. It is my sincerest wish to spare anyone any undue distress.

Enjoy.

* * *

His Dew on the Bells

* * *

A person's life isn't like a story. In life, just as in the cold dance of a blade in a duel, there are no clear beginnings or endings, not until you look back and try to romanticize the flitting moments into some deliberate journey. Life hardly needs to be a meaningful journey towards a destination. It doesn't need a specific purpose because it's too massive to need one. Being is the whole point.

It was a lesson Watanuki had learned a long time ago from a living cursed sword that had seen much of life long before Watanuki's great grandparents had been conceived.

_Shiun…_

But it wasn't an ancient edged gravity that the young Onmyouji sensed in the current vision he was experiencing. No- in the oddly lulling image of a woman's belly wrap tugged impatiently aside as fingers of shadow and light striped her breasts that rose welcomingly, the sense he felt was softer, jaded but with a note of acceptance amidst a careless ennui. The flushed panting youth above had tried to hide his green years behind sparse tufts of beard, but the young boatman was far too easily belied by his enchanted eagerness. As the golden bells on a silver necklace she wore round her neck tinkled with her breaths, his earth brown eyes darted to hers every so often, searching fearfully for every sign that he had made a misstep. He would only find her gratifying hot gaze stoking his passions with a thrill that jolted right down into his core.

It wasn't a remotely altruistic gesture, or even because she wanted to secure a patron; the sooner the boy parted with his seed, the sooner she could return on the streets pedalling her hastily cleaned wares.

It took a while for Watanuki's consciousness to remember itself and recognize the irony in the fact that a virgin like himself was mocking a blundering youth while he watched by the consciousness of a yuujo, a name for playmates for men in times of old when samurai ruled the land. Was this the woman's memory? No… no, this was Saeki's memory, so something in the scene should be connected to him. Watanuki cast his focus out like a net in the scene but his search proved fruitless. The grunting young man looked nothing like Saeki, and neither did the woman of negotiable virtue. As he puzzled over the observation, his grip on the vision slipped and it tumbled from his focus as a welter of other images streamed by him.

At first, he couldn't make much sense of them, catching only snatches of torrid lust and indifferent persistence, but gradually the images slowed expectantly and he found his consciousness drifting into an evening drizzle above a bridge over a rippling stream. A bamboo and wax paper parasol sheltered two huddled figures, both swathed in secretive cloaks, not a lantern between them to ease the suffocating darkness. The soft ringing of bells shivered along with their master's voice.

"Toichi-san, how long more must we live like this… haven't I earned enough? Let's just run away now, far from here, start our own lives-"

"Sh! You're voice! Too loud!" Toichi hissed, the taller cloaked figure looking around conspiratorially. When he turned back to the yuujo, his voice was more honeyed. "You have to be patient… I've kept all the money you've earned for us somewhere safe, and there might be enough to run away now, but I can't let my son suffer because of my selfishness. My wife may be a shrew but she's been loyal all this while. Right now the business is bad… if I leave now the shop will collapse and they'll be at the mercy of my creditors."

The other shadow only shook her head in distress as she threw herself against him, the bells round her neck jolted into delicate chimes with a hollow cheer. "Please keep your word… please… I've entrusted everything to you… everything…"

"I know… I know everything…" The man soothed, his hands stroking the sides of the hidden delicate neck, causing a gnawing uneasiness in Watanuki as the bells tinkled dully. "Just until I can stabilize the business, and in the mean time, keep trusting me… for the sake of our future."

Watanuki didn't want to witness this any longer, and as if the vision sensed his thoughts, the dripping rain faded into silence as true darkness coalesced over the night scene. The Onmyouji could tell how this would end. It was a story he had heard before, no doubt a familiar pattern wherever there were women vulnerable enough to trust in a man completely, and there were men who were utter scum waiting to prey on that vulnerability purely for their profit. The more important discovery was that Watanuki had had a clue on how Saeki figured in the past two visions. Still, he needed to know more, to witness the actual birth of the demon… it was his duty after all, as the new-

Watanuki's thoughts were ripped asunder as claws of fear and pain tore into his consciousness before he realized that he was hearing a scream raw with desperate tears. Leering laughter chorused in response, depraved and dangerous.

"No! Please! I'll give you all my money- my jewellery! Hah! Help! Help! No! No-"

The sickening tear of fabric cut through fear-choked cries, but no amount of curiosity would entice Watanuki to behold the scene with his mind's eye though the sounds lanced unrelentingly deep into his senses.

"Hahaha! Look at that bitch's breasts- they're fucking melons! The slut must like squeezing cocks with them!"

"Ahahaha! You're only saying that because you feel like jamming your prick between those freak-sized funbags…"

"You got me there!"

"Then I'm taking her stinking cun-"

No! No, he didn't want to hear anymore! Yet this time Watanuki's mental pleas were mercilessly ignored. The cruel sounds of humiliation burned into his mind with a searing insistence that overwhelmed his will.

The screams had abated as the woman was reduced to senseless sobbing that was far more frightening than the struggling cries.

"Please… Toichi-san… Touichi-san… Help…"

"Toichi-san? Oh… so you know that man! Hahaha! If you have to hate anyone, he's the one you should blame all of this on." The first man informed her gleefully.

The tearful pause was filled by the second man's derisive laughter.

"He paid us quite a bit to deal with you, you stupid whore!"

"T-Toichi-" The yuujo murmured dazedly. Watanuki felt the cold flash of horror drain into his mental self.

"Hah! Did he fuck you good? The way you're moaning for him… you were his bitch weren't you?" The second man jeered.

Her confused stream of denial echoed achingly in Watanuki's mind.

"No… he didn't- you're lying! Lying, lying, lying, lying- it can't be… Toichi-san promised me, he promised me-"

"Hmn? Missing your lover's fucking cock are you? You're a slutty little bitch aren't yer? Well, don't worry, my bro and I'll give you a little special service, no charge… we'll send you to the netherworld without any complaints!"

Their raucous laughter was a dark accompaniment to her wailing dismay, pinning the helpless Onmyouji in an oppressive tide of twisted emotions. Fear, despair, pleasure thrashed in his mind like a crazed chimera, its monstrous heads mauling each other, intoxicated with the rush of blood and pain, feeding on itself. Above it all, the bells, jangling amidst the laughter, screams, and taunts, even above Watanuki's unheeded pleas for the tormenting assault to be lifted from his mind.

Then-

-silence. Like the stab of an icy blade.

His mind throbbing with the slowly fading pain, he relented to the distant urge that prickled against his battered consciousness and beheld the tragic scene.

All alone and half-buried in the long grass of a deserted field, she lay limp, soulless eyes staring vacantly at the empty night sky. No… she had been staring at a memory, a memory of a man. Had she cursed his name while the cutthroats had violated her, or had she chosen to believe that her murderers lied and that her love was unsullied by lies of faithlessness? Which would have been better? Watanuki couldn't tell. He ached to drape her tortured body with a cloth or at least his shirt, but in his current form he had neither clothes nor even the hands to fulfill the most basic act of decency he should offer. Blood, thick and ebony, poured dully from a gaping rent in her throat. Unable to bear the brutality any further, Watanuki willed the image away, or began to-

"_Chrin, chrin, chring!"_

Bells?

Watanuki turned back to the grisly sight, but his eyes fell only upon the faintest hint of gold mired deep within currents of blood, too choked with the crimson tide of death to sing their song.

Then-

"_Chrin, chrin, chring!"_

-this wasn't the sound of bells-

"_Chrin, chrin, chring!" _

-but the ghostly beckoning of vengeance…

A golden mist rose from the yuujo's remains, caressed by the moonlight that had just begun to cascade from behind the thick midnight clouds. It seethed restlessly, stretching out at first as far as the length of the body, but gradually narrowed itself to a denser mass coalescing into a small body- the body of a child. Limbs, still golden and smoky, formed themselves about the naked torso of what appeared to be a young boy. Yet, Watanuki was focused on the face that surfaced from within the solidifying head.

Angelic, almost unforgivably so above the gruesome corpse, the created being peered at his origins with a wistful, forlorn expression, and a sudden desire to embrace the child swelled within Watanuki.

Yet, this was not his time, and no longer Saeki's.

The young Onmyouji allowed his focus to linger on Saeki's rapidly blurring face as the vision receded from his mind. He had witnessed what he was obligated to- the original birth of his latest guardian spirit, and just like it had been with his first, Watanuki had no regrets.

_Shiun… Saeki…_

_

* * *

_

One of the little known facts about Doumeki was that he had never uttered a swear in his life. It wasn't that the young Shinto priest had never found occasion to, or due to the fact that his upbringing had been as sheltered as of that of a young noble. The predominant reason was that he found that cussing served no purpose save that of fuelling blinding rage and disrupting one's focus.

There were moments, though, when he was tempted to take the risk just for the brief raw satisfaction a choice curse word could bring.

He had been tricked, and it stung even more that he had predicted this result. Over the eerily silent night, past the still forms of the slumbering pedestrians and the miraculously unscathed motorists littered beneath the buzzing neon lights of the city, Doumeki followed the faint aura trail of a demon, that accursed bell-ringing a taunting whisper at the very edges of his hearing. The transformation of the gaudy paradise into a brightly flashing ghost town had shocked him- how was it that the Sundered Vajra had not detected such a powerful demon before?

Angry with himself for his carelessness he had raced ahead, his sacred bow readied by his side. So, it had been with a mixture of trepidation and exhilaration that he finally cut the escape path of a dark, wildly swaying coat, the tinkling chime of bells emanating from somewhere within the depths of the swathing material. Wasting no time, he had called up a temporary barrier around them, preparing their battle cage. Trapped, the demon had unfolded itself in a flurry of whipping robes that swept up towards the apex of the glowing dome barrier.

Doumeki had smirked coldly. It was true that the highest point of a barrier erected from ground up was also its weakest point, but underestimating him to the point of ignoring his potential attack was far too condescending and fatal a folly that the forsaken filth would regret.

Before the young Shinto priest could feel the faintest pressure of resistance against his barrier, his holy arrow had already pierced through the dead centre of the swirling mass.

In an instant of white incandescent flame, all that remained of the demon was the faint odour of ozone and a crackling static that prickled against Doumeki.

But he had hardly begun to savour the relief when the unmistakeable echoes of the demonic bell from far off chilled the light in his eyes. After that, it had been a full seven more maddening chases of identical cloaked entities, all chiming with the sane unsettling chorus of bells.

Decoys, all of them! Each programmed with the single-minded desire to flee, each burning up faster than a dry leaf fallen into a bonfire.

_Tch!_

The worst part of it was that he had had to hunt down _each_ and _every_ one of them, even though he had suspected that they were all fakes. The risk that even one of them could be real was too great to ignore. Furthermore, they were no mere illusions- his sundered Vajra reacted strongly to each and every last one of the cloaked figures, each of them identified to exude a demonic aura with centuries worth of corruption. It seemed that way to his sense of it as well. The only possible explanation Doumeki had was that the eight decoys were evolved from the very essence of the demon itself… which was a frightening prospect to consider.

What manner of demon could afford to expend that much of its essence just to distract him? What could such powerful split forms do if he decided to ignore them? Perhaps the more immediate question was the reason that such a powerful demon had for such subterfuge. He had to entertain the possibility that the demon had powers beyond his own capacity to exorcise.

In such a case, _what_ was the reason for such subterfuge?

The practitioner.

While the Shinto priest could not discern it completely due to the cloak, that the boy could manipulate the elements to hide his aura so skilfully proved that his prowess was well above the average peddler shaman. If they joined forces, even a powerful demon might have cause to be threatened. Thus, he had been baited away-

-which meant that the demon's true target was the boy!

If he had known a swear strong enough, Doumeki would have spat it out. Instead, a fierce rage smouldered in the pit of his golden eyes.

"Tch! Hang in there, kid!"

* * *

Watanuki brushed the tears that were tracking down the high ridge of Saeki's flushed cheek, a wave of tenderness rushing out of his own heart, moistening his eyes. What he beheld now was not the Saeki in his vision, nor was it the Saeki that he had come to know in the past week. He had aged, or blossomed rather, from a baby-faced young bud of youth, to a tender petalled bloom, glistening with the fresh dew of morn.

"Why… are you crying? I couldn't help the aging… it is a reflection of your growth." Watanuki informed his new guardian spirit. Saeki answered it with a glare.

"You know very well why I'm crying! This feeling… the spell… you cast on me…" Saeki accused, though he traced Watanuki's brow with a pained gaze.

Watanuki chuckled softly, raising his brows in a helpless expression. "It's the bond between a master and his guardian spirit. It works both ways… well, from my experience anyway." With a more sober look, he finished his brief explanation. "You were too far gone for me to save you any other way. My power supports your existence now."

"That explains why I couldn't kill you while you were spacing out." Saeki noted dryly, though his fingers couldn't keep themselves from Watanuki's locks.

"If you had wanted to kill me you could have done so a long time ago, back when I was first here, unconscious in the guest room. No demon desiring my power should have been able to resist." Watanuki countered mildly, while he patiently watched Saeki explore the newfound sensation. He understood the fascination well enough himself, having been through it once before.

"My, don't we have a high opinion of ourselves!" Saeki retorted with a smirk, the corner of his lips drawn into a frown when he studied the pallor complexion of his master.

Watanuki smiled. "It puzzled me a great deal… but your aura was clean of malice. There was a gentleness there… and now I can finally understand why."

Saeki's eyes flicked their interest back to Watanuki's steady gaze. "Why?"

"There are things that all the demonic power in the world may not be able to grant, like the warmth of a home…" Watanuki replied, finally yielding to the urges of their spiritual bond and resting his arms about Saeki's back. He felt the guardian's back relax under his touch, but worry clouded the spirit's soft brown eyes. "What's wrong?" Watanuki asked.

"We will be leaving, won't we?" Saeki demanded quietly. "We can't stay here with that Shinto priest sniffing around." Raising his eyes to Watanuki, he went on. "And even if that meddlesome priest wasn't in the picture, something tells me you wouldn't stay here long."

Watanuki stroked Saeki's cheek, the barest hint of a saddened smile just noticeable upon his lips. "I didn't make you my guardian to chain you to my side. I did it because Kurou-san, Keiki-san and Engel-san would all be sad to have you disappear from their lives. You don't have to follow me. You can lie low until the priest loses interest and reunite with the others then."

Saeki snorted derisively, though his eyes had grown oddly bright again. "Don't even joke about that… it hurts just to hear it."

Watanuki knew that it did, he felt it himself after all. "But you know… this feeling… it's not really real." Watanuki pointed out with a false grin.

"It's real enough." Saeki rebutted, rising before the seated Watanuki, his gaze cast towards the slumbering forms of Keiki and Engel, before turning to the shut kitchen doors behind which Kurou slept as deeply as the rest of his unconventional but wholly genuine family. "I'll just miss them, but I knew this day would come."

"When you asked me to recompense you, it was for the sake of returning to the life you once enjoyed." Watanuki reminded him.

"I know." Saeki replied curtly, and then broke into a good-natured smile before he went on. "But if I stayed, Engel-san and the others, they wouldn't be safe, would they? As your guardian, I resonate with elements of your distinct aura no matter how I may hide it, and if someone as powerful as you could be discovered by other demons, I… well, I don't stand a chance, do I?" Glancing at Watanuki's expression, Saeki tried to quell his own guilt as he soothed his master's by sweeping down into a crouch, grasping the Onmyouji's hands in his own and squeezing them tightly.

"At least I still have you." Saeki consoled, almost managing to keep from making a face.

Watanuki laughed but the mirth died as quickly as it began. "It's not real, though, this feeling." He repeated his caveat from before.

"I'm a prostitute, Watanuki-_sama_, both my customers and I are quite content with 'real enough'." Saeki returned cheekily.

Watanuki chuckled softly, blushing as he made his response. "I'd rather not be addressed with that honorific, especially since I think you use it on your customers too."

It was while Watanuki was watching Saeki craft his response that the store window shattered in a burst of scything glass surpassed by the deadly flight of a blinding white bolt-

* * *

TBC


	9. Phantom Memoir

A/N: I was actually originally a little uncertain about this chapter, but it turned out ok, I think. I should warn you that there are a couple of inconsequential references to some other fandoms, but they are the mere garnishes to the main tale, and nowhere near the degree of a crossover.

Also, in case anyone's wondering, *cough* ecchi- perverted; baibu- "vibe" (vibrator).

Do enjoy.

* * *

Phantom Memoir

* * *

The numbing aches and sporadic jolts of pain in Watanuki's body vanished as that gilded gaze swept over him.

Shi… zuka-dono.

Shizuka Dou… meki?

Impossible. No, it couldn't be possible, this-!

"You-" Watanuki began but couldn't finish. That off-centre parted dark fringe curtaining golden eyes framed beneath sharply frowning brows, and the shining surprise reflected deep within them, made him tremble uncontrollably as a distant voice echoed within him.

_Shizuka-dono! _

The buffeting air and the sudden tightness of Watanuki's skin alerted him of the danger that was to come to the young man before him, and the warning surged to his lips, but something held him back. The tight line of consternation of the man's dull pink lips had drifted apart to frame the words Watanuki both wanted and feared to hear.

"Wata-"

The sick sound of ripping flesh cut the bare whisper as Doumeki's body shook with the force of the slashing strikes. As the blood sprayed like a hellish mist above the young priest's slowly sinking form, Watanuki only remembered the world going white while the horror throbbed in the haze of his desperate rejection of what he had just witnessed.

"DOUMEKI!"

* * *

_Dear Diary,_

_Saeki here! (Missed me? Aw… I mish you too!) _

_Yesterday, I became a man. Oh, no, not that sense of it- _ecchi_! Last night, my voice broke and I grew really tall, almost as tall as Kurou-san, and much taller than Keikei (a.k.a Keiki-san if you like the boring form)._

_As if that wasn't exciting enough, while I was up there suffering through the growth pains, a gay hate crime gas attack occurred, knocking everyone out- or at least that's what everyone thinks. I know what really happened because it was revealed to me in a dream._

_Last night I dreamt that I was a demon almost four centuries old that survived by having wet, torrid sex with men and siphoning their life force while they shot their sticky load in me. Mmmm… tasty- but I digress. _

_Yes, I was a demon that survived by seducing horny men. A boy's gotta eat right? But the only catch in the café were too busy biting other bait- specifically, Watanuki-san, or his cooking anyway._

_Since there was nothing I could nibble on at home, I had to go get takeout, but takeout these days… well, let's just say that the toy they put in my happy meal wasn't demon-friendly. Well, _that _put me in a bind. I thought I was going to die! And I would have. Yet, there was hope yet. You see, Watanuki-san was really an Onmyouji- no, much more than that, he was an enigmatic being that held a mysterious power that could potentially transform the world. If he wished, he could easily save a dying demon. The only problem was that one of the guests was a  
Shinto priest, and they have a bad reputation with demons. If they're not hunting us down to kill us, they kidnap us and secrete us away in some dank prison, and they don't even do any of the pervy "S" stuff like super-powered _baibu _torment, or even a decent ball gag. _

_Ah, but once again, I digress. _

_So I did a Criss Angel- well, what I did was nothing so complicated as an illusion made to look like real magic. I merely split my broken body into nine parts, eight serving as distractions while the ninth went to persuade Watanuki-san. I would have chosen the part with my __ULTIMATE joystick__ to be the ninth, but I didn't want Watanuki-san to get sidetracked. _

_So while everyone was asleep, (courtesy of my demonic magic), I finally bullied Watanuki-san into helping me, but not before he gave me the shock of my life. _You_ try getting trapped in a magic circle set up by ritual daggers and have a blood-coated astral blade stabbed into your forehead, and see if _you _pee in your g-string. Luckily for me, I didn't have a g-string on at the time. I didn't have my butt with me at the time either owing to the fact that I was just a floating head. Not my sexiest moment, I admit. _

_Still, this story has a happy ending, Watanuki was really conducting a ritual that transformed me into his guardian spirit, about the only option left to him at the time since I was too far gone for any other method he could think of- or so he says. My guess is that it was his strange way of hitting on me. _

_Aaaanyway… that's how I got bigger. As a demon, my original human incarnation was modelled after a child by my original creator, a dying, bitter prostitute (long story). With Watanuki's reformation of my decimated body, elements of his impossible essence infused me with a hint of that ineffable power, forcing an evolution- kinda like P__okémon, except Saeki doesn't get ugly- so it's more like Digimon… Saekimon… yeah that has a nice ring to it. The hottest trainer of all time, Yamato Ishida, would be my trainer. That hottie can play with my harmonica all day. _

_Anyway, that's about the time when the happy story meets a surprise twist. White lightning struck, shattering the window, and before I knew it, Watanuki had pushed me aside to take the blow. As I watched in horror, his small frame was flung back like a rag doll into the bar counter with a chillingly solid sound of a crack. _

_Enraged, I turned in time to see a second volley of furious white fire roaring towards me. But the sudden steely arcs of blades in flight collided into the white bolt, rupturing it in a fiery explosion that threw me off my feet. The realization that it had been Watanuki's ritual daggers that had saved me would come later. At that moment, my thoughts were only of how I could save my new master.  
_

_Building my newfound power in my eyes, I called upon my natural element, the wind, to scythe at our assailant. Blades of air tore past the smashed window, their tips scoring the concrete frames. They must have connected with a barrier of some sort as the air boomed with the force of powerful reverberations. _

_Not wasting any time, I scrambled to Watanuki's side. Thankfully, he seemed unhurt for the most part, though a few bruises looked as if they would hurt quite a bit. It was then that I noticed the Shinto priest, Shizuka Doumeki (I can't even begin to guess how he got in so quickly), half-rising in caution while he finished checking on the friend he had been with. Of course, all this I knew only afterwards. Then, all I saw was an enemy that had just struck my master down. Reassured with the knowledge that my master was stirring, I readied my next attack almost as swiftly as the priest launched another spiritual arrow. Instead of blades, I tapped into the very depths of the air's spiritual power and twisted the space around Watanuki and myself. _

_As the piercing glare of light burned with rapidly expanding force, my heart nearly stopped when the flare burst with unbearable intensity. Then, it wobbled, shuddered, and shrieked almost as if it were alive, the arrow's brilliance shredded into small light pulses criss-crossing about my barrier of twisted space. Tiny pops rippled from somewhere behind me as the light pulses slammed harmlessly into the thick kitchen doors where my barrier sent them. _

_Yet, I barely had time to relax as another three rapid fire bolts struck my barrier, each ending in much the same way as the first, though the resultant pops became far more strident as my barrier struggled to manage the tripled surge of power in the assault. _

_While I was struggling to catch my breath as the maintenance of the high level barrier wore on my endurance, a sudden movement beside made me jump and I turned to see Watanuki rising up, emerging effortlessly from the barrier, his simple movement dispelling it. _

"_What are you doing!" I hissed in the rude shock, but Watanuki only flapped his hands dismissively at me, while he blinked awkwardly- possibly to rid the spots flashing before his dazed eyes. _

"_Please, stop. It's a misunderstanding, we mean no-" my new master began, but faltered as he truly beheld what stood before him. That damn golden-eyed archer seemed to appraise Watanuki with no more friendliness than any Shinto priest would have for a corrupted spirit. Shock and cold suspicion seemed to pin my young master where he stood. _

"_You…" Watanuki continued to mumble, but I knew pleas were pointless with that type. Calling once more upon the blades of wind, I sent them flying towards the priest, preparing to grab Watanuki and run…_

… _but things didn't quite go as planned. _

_The sound of ripping flesh surprised even me as the blades struck true. I was so taken aback that a pang of guilt paralyzed me for a moment, and in the next, I was overwhelmed by a wave of crushing sorrow. No, the sorrow wasn't my own, no, that pain was Watanuki's. A guardian spirit's bond with his master created a mystical empathy, and I had a direct connection to Watanuki's strongest feelings. His heartrending cry for the fallen priest sent yet another stab to my heart. _

_What followed after was fevered and rushed. Whisky became a makeshift disinfectant and anaesthetic, while needles and strong thread were pillaged from a nearby convenience store, its occupants slumbering in my enchantment. Both Watanuki and I only knew the most simple of healing spells, which slowed some of the bleeding, but it was really Watanuki's desperate will and frantic efforts at stitching the gaping wounds that saved the priest's life. _

_I have to give that Doumeki credit though- he was tough; even with a liberal amount of alcohol force fed into his system, a lesser man would have cursed and whimpered in the sheer agony. Doumeki stuck to soft grunting and the odd hiss. _

_At the end of it, it looked queasily like three long crimson centipedes crawled across the priest's torso. _

_By the time everyone had woken up, Doumeki had been carried into Watanuki's room, and I lifted the enchantment just before dawn broke. Between that time and morning, I spent the intervening hours fabricating that gas attack story, somehow managing to squeeze in a little white lie to explain the half-dead guest in Watanuki's bed. Gas bomb thrown at shop window- glass smash- cut man bad. There were a great deal more questions but I had the collective confusion of a baffled neighbourhood to my advantage. I managed, more or less. _

_I did have some questions of my own though… yes questions… many questions… they're a secret though! Hahaha… an alluring man is all the more tantalizing for his secrets y'know!_

_When I woke up from the dream, I half-expected to fly or grow a demon's tail, but no such luck. A tail would have been so much fun, think of all the prehensile games I could have played! Oh well, maybe tonight I'll dream of tails… both kinds… _

_Hoping to write an entry on what an adult's wet dreams are like next,_

_Super Demon Sa-e-ki-mon!_

…and Saeki dropped the pen with a smug smile as he reread some of the more memorable lines in his diary entry. Now to find a place where Keiki would definitely come across the fake journal. He could almost hear the comforting beat of head banging; Keiki was always so excitable when dealing with cutesy and depraved little Saeki.

Of course, most of what was written was true, but that only heightened the thrill. Yet, perhaps some portions were far too truthful for comfort. Questions… yes, he had a few questions... the most pressing of which was who the hell was Doumeki and why did his master seem so attached to a man whom he had been fully prepared to flee from, moments before desperately saving his life? Was it pure altruism, or…

A sudden rafter-shaking roar from a nearby distance interrupted Saeki's reverie.

"_YOU WHAT!" _

Blinking, the guardian spirit recognised Watanuki's rage-distorted voice. It was after all the fourth time this day alone that he had heard it, so he knew Doumeki was its recipient too, though it still came as a shock to see such uncharacteristic outbursts from the usually mild-mannered youth. Saeki wasn't alone in his surprise, poor Kurou had looked as if he would cry from overworked concern. Eventually, Engel had had to take Kurou out on some contrived errand while Keiki and the one called Kouichi made sure Watanuki didn't murder the object of his sporadically erupting wrath.

But Saeki hadn't forgotten the paralyzing torment flooding him through his link with Watanuki when the Onmyouji feared that he had lost the young Shinto priest. There was no mistaking such pure emotion…

"_YOU ARROGANT LITTLE-!"_

… then again, there was no mistaking the emotion in that either.

* * *

"… noisy…" Doumeki noted with a dissatisfied frown while a growling Watanuki glared at him from beside the bed the young Shinto priest rested on.

"The _crust_ off? You… want… me… to… cut… the… crust… off… your… specially… requested… midnight… supper… roasted… eel… toast… sandwiches!" Watanuki breathed his fury with the inexorable rhythm of Phlegethon as the river of eternal flame consumed the damned souls of Hades. While Keiki and Kouichi shuddered from a safe distance, Doumeki barely looked askance as he turned to his heaping plate of triangle sandwiches, staring pointedly at the offending crust.

"I don't eat the crust." Doumeki explained to a largely uncaring audience. Keiki and Kouichi turned expectantly towards Watanuki, their hands raised preemptively to their ears.

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!"

Doumeki waited for the squall to die down to a fit of heaving breaths before he turned a puzzled look at the panting youth. "What?" He asked innocently, prompting Keiki and Kouichi to take a bracing step back.

Watanuki only sighed gustily before fixing a baleful glare on Doumeki. "_It's fine_, I'm too tired to deal with you."

The young Shinto priest nodded magnanimously, but the frown returned almost immediately. "But where's the wine?" Doumeki wanted to know.

"I'll go get it!" Keiki announced, all but running for the door as a deep guttural rumbling emanated from Watanuki.

"I'll get the glass!" Kouichi joined in with prudent haste.

As the door clicked shut behind the rapidly departing steps, Watanuki watched Doumeki examine a sandwich with deeply furrowed brows. Ignoring the brief flash of annoyance within him, Watanuki let his gaze fall instead to the young Shinto priest's bare lean torso and the swathing bandages that showed hints of red where the wounds lay beneath. Even now, the mere memory of his attempts to seal the gaping wound and stem the copious bleeding made his palms turn clammy. Watanuki could only manage the most basic of healing spells, but he did know how to stitch up a wound and it was lucky that they had had so much alcohol at hand, both to sterilise the wound and to keep Doumeki somewhat sedated. The young priest's flesh had still trembled with every puncture.

When Watanuki raised his eyes to the amber gaze of the young man in question, Doumeki was already working on his second sandwich, keeping fastidiously to the lightly browned portion, the rind-like balance of his earlier sandwich testament to his steadfast refusal to eat the crust. Doumeki sent a sideway glance, noticing Watanuki's scrutiny.

"What? Do you want this?" Doumeki offered picking up the leftover crust and placing it in Watanuki's open palm.

"Why do I get the feeling that you're baiting me?" Watanuki wondered aloud, though he bit off a piece off the moist-edged crust, cringing as he did so.

Doumeki blinked in apparent surprise, as if he hadn't expected Watanuki's sudden compliance. "Take one." He offered again, though this time he held out a whole sandwich.

Watanuki stuffed the rest of the crust into his mouth, chewing it noisily, the daring gleam in his eyes challenging any comments from the Shinto priest. When the Shinto priest merely looked on unperturbed, he swallowed the soggy masticated lump and sighed. Doumeki's offered sandwich still sat there in the outstretched hand, so Watanuki lifted it out with a small grunt while he watched Doumeki with narrowed eyes.

"I'll just eat the crust, you can have the centre." He informed the young priest who only lifted his brows wordlessly, his expression otherwise impassive. "You shouldn't waste food." Watanuki added and took a bite of the crust, more carefully this time.

Doumeki's eyes grew distant with silent contemplation for a moment before they refocused on Watanuki's cautious gaze

"What?" Watanuki demanded brusquely setting down the nibbled sandwich on the plate.

"You're supposed to be dead." Doumeki pointed out bluntly, interested to see a shadow pass over Watanuki's violet gaze. "Demons hardly leave human survivors when they feast so blatantly."

"Yes." Watanuki answered simply. "But I'm not like other humans."

Doumeki watched the mocking smile and the brittle light in his caretaker's eyes and averted his own for a moment, hesitating. "We're still human," he murmured quietly.

Something pulsed from deep within the Onmyouji for a brief glinting moment before fading into an afterglow that ached with loss.

"D-Doumeki-san…" Watanuki began uncertainly.

"Doumeki is fine."

"En… Doumeki. Shizuka... Doumeki?" Watanuki checked tentatively.

"You never did explain how you knew my name." Doumeki responded with a barely veiled question of his own.

"That-" …but there was no way Watanuki could actually say it. A dream of events centuries past that had long turned to dust beneath a thousand sunsets. Who was to say any of it was real? Yet, those golden eyes… the strong but smooth edges of an intrepid face… even that quiet and infuriating personality… with the exact same name too…

Was this some sort of joke? Shiun had assured him that it was a dream of the past, but then, what was this man doing here, in this place, in this time?

"Were you… were you really born into this world seventeen years ago? Do you really have parents- no, a birth certificate, have you seen your birth certificate?" Watanuki bombarded in an agitated barrage of questions.

Doumeki raised a cautioning hand while the golden gleam of his eyes narrowed, chagrined. "What's with all these rude questions?"

Watanuki cheeks flushed, violet eyes lowering, abashed at his own brazenness. "Sorry, I just-"

Doumeki observed the young man before him closely. "I'm not asking you to apologize." Closing his eyes briefly, he allowed the tension to drain out from his shoulders, and rested back on the propped pillows. "As far as I know, I was born seventeen years ago, on this Earth, to human parents. To the best of my knowledge, aside from my natural… gifts… I'm a completely normal human."

"Then, you're absolutely sure-" Watanuki began desperately but was cut off by his surprise as Doumeki abruptly thrust the bed covers aside.

"You're welcome to check if I'm some sort of monster." Doumeki offered, spreading his arms and legs apart in calm submission.

At that precise moment, the door clicked open revealing two timid faces belonging to Keiki and Koucihi, a frosted bottle of rice wine and some glasses carried between them.

"Since you want to see one so badly, you're welcome to tug out the hidden tail in my pants." Doumeki continued as if he hadn't noticed the returning attendants.

Kouichi and Keiki turned scandalized looks to a crimson-faced Watanuki who picked up a pewter candlestick on the adjacent nightstand in his trembling hand. In a sudden motion, he swung it up in a readying arc.

"_Die._" He intoned coldly as the crash of glass and Keiki and Kouichi's frantic voices heralded another squall of pandemonium.

* * *

In a subterranean prison, the black blood of demons befouled the cell, as if someone had shredded the bodies of a dozen accursed beings and splattered their tender insides across the confined space. The tendrils of vile matter streaking past the dark caging bars were testament to the violence that the cell had contained in the past week. Alone in the grisly aftermath of the slaughter, the rough breaths of a tortured form shivered in the dank air.

"_Food… anything… please… can't stand this hunger…"_

But the desperate pleas only echoed hollowly. The misshapen beast keened piteously, its claws raking the soiled earth and raising the tainted dust to its mouth.

"_Guh! Gahah! Ou-guah! Gah! Hah!" _

Vomiting putrid slime from its swollen, parched lips, the demon cried weakly into its own half-chewed hand. Experience had proven that it was true that a demon couldn't eat itself for nourishment, not when what a demon feasted on was some source of life energy, and eating your own body was as good as filling a hole with empty space, completely futile. Still, its tongue licked its remaining fingers hungrily. Just to be able to gnaw on something… nn… but…

"_Shiun-sama… please… something… anything…" _It called hopelessly.

"What's this? Oh my… you've eaten all your brothers haven't you?" A deep baritone boomed in a casual innocence that sent an involuntary shudder down the captured demon's spiked spine.

"_Shiun-sama! Shiun-sama, please, please-"_

Dry, dusty sounding steps scraped idly in the shadows as the sound of the fallen demon's scrambling rustled earnestly towards the bars. The demon's failing vision struggled to make out the silhouette of the Demon Lord it remembered. The feeble light in its eyes grew fearful as its gaze connected with the steel-bright eyes glowing in the sharply defined features. A thin bladed nose set in a face outlined in slender sleek lines and above lips stretched in a thin humourless smile- the perfect beauty of a highborn demon's human guise. The only mark of the Demon Lord's true nature was the long, silken, dark plume of his hair that billowed in an invisible wind, grudgingly tamed by a silver cord that bound it into a writhing ominous banner. Demon Lord Shiun's princely stature was clothed in a simple black yukata printed with yellow-grey storm clouds lined in golden filigree swirling in a silent tempest, his feet covered in pure white _tabi_ socks that refused to be stained by the earth so carelessly trodden on. In the cavernous dungeon echoing with the eternally captive moans of condemned infernal spirits, Shiun dragged his feet as casually as one would in one's own home after a hard day at work.

"What's with all this whining?" He drawled with artful exasperation. "I've had a long day today- is that any way to greet your lord?"

"_Shi… un… sa... ma… I've learned… I've learned my lesson… please give me one more chance… never… never again…"_ The imprisoned creature sobbed as it beat its head wildly against the earth in a frantic plea for pardon.

"Have you now? I'm not sure…" Shiun wondered aloud, eyes remorselessly devoid of warmth.

"_Yes! Yes I have! Shiun-sama… my brothers, we shouldn't have forgotten our mission… the Master, the Master… I'll find the Master no matter what it takes…" _The demon begged, the bars rattling with its desperation.

"There's no need…" Shiun declared, silver-grey eyes sweeping over the dried remains of demonic gore coating the cell, "Shiro has been investigating the area. _There's_ a good boy who doesn't get distracted by his tummy… unlike some I could care to mention…"

In the suffocating shadows, eyes as bright as the finest sword steel became flecked with facets of violet light. A nimbus of violet light filtered out of the darkness, surrounding the prostrated form of the imprisoned demon.

"_Hah? No, no, NO! NGHHHHHHHH! Hah! Hah! Nghaaa... hi... haa... haa... mer... cy... haaa… Shiun… sama… please!" _The demon screamed in tearful agony as the pangs of hunger assaulted it with a violence that threatened to tear its sanity and body into bloody shreds.

"Your brothers and you couldn't even resist filling your vile stomachs for just a moment, losing a golden opportunity to recover the Master… two disgusting humans… distracted you from our Master… two putrid lumps of worthless meat…" Shiun calmly accused, only the building intensity of the violet in his eyes revealing his mounting wrath.

"_We were wrong! Pleeaase… uhunh… hn… pleeease… ah! SHIUN-SAMA!" _The demon shook uncontrollably as it clawed its own stomach in a crazed bid to rip its suffering out. Dark blood spilled freely from the shredded abdomen.

"What's the matter? I'm just giving you a little appetite… it's perfect for a glutton like you, isn't it? Brothers who would kill and devour each other just because of a little hunger spell… it's the perfect gift for you… an insatiable appetite… never filling… never ceasing to want…" Shiun reasoned, the faintest hint of a smile playing on his thin lips.

"_Ah! AHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" _

Then the violet light died abruptly, and the Demon Lord's gaze returned to their harsh steel light. The bleeding, crumpled form on the cell floor whimpered and moaned as its body shook with terror and pain.

"However… Shiro has pleaded with me to grant you dogs some mercy…" Shiun began with a mildly disappointed note in his voice. "That child is a good boy, just a little too kind you see. Well, I don't hate that about him."

"_Shiro… sama…" _The dying demon quavered with fragile hope.

"So I brought you something to eat." Shiun declared, his hand waving lazily toward the prison bars, materializing a small white porcelain bowl that hovered above the quivering mass of the prisoner.

"_Shiun-sama! Shiro-sama… Thank you... thank you..." _The demon wept, struggling to sit up as its trembling arms stretched out towards the slowly sinking bowl. Shiun watched on impassively as the bowl lowered into his servant's hands, the crimson fluid in them sloshing lugubriously against the sloping sides of the vessel. Bringing the bowl's cool rim to its lips in a sudden impulsive jerk, the demon stopped itself in time to raise fearful eyes to its master's cold expression.

"_Shiun-sama… h-have I tru-truly b-been… f-for-forgiven?" _The demon asked anxiously, its teeth chattering uncontrollably in an inexplicable surge of baffling terror.

"Forgiven?" Shiun echoed in mild bemusement. "I just said that I'd show you a little mercy by feeding you. Who said anything about forgiving you?"

"_T-then… then this bowl…"_ The demon stuttered dark dread filling its widening eyes.

"You can see for yourself that it's human blood… but blessed blood from the unspoiled body of a maiden Miko who sacrificed herself to entice a powerful demon to his doom. I slew the fool myself and collected her blood as my reward."

"_But… I'll disintegrate into dust if I drink this!" _The demon cried in hopeless anguish.

"Then don't drink it." Shiun pointed out, turning away from the pathetic keening as he started to leave.

"_Hiiii… ngaaaaaaaah! Let me out! Let me OUT! Ungah! Hah! Hnnn… please… someone… any… hi… one…" _The demon howled behind him.

Sighing, Shiun paused for a moment, his thoughts turning to Shiro's large golden eyes watching him winsomely from behind the white fur trim of the high collar of a thickly padded white jacket.

"Tomorrow-" Shiun began somewhat reluctantly, "tomorrow at dawn, I will hand the key to your cell to Shiro. He will be permitted to do whatever he chooses to with it and with whatever remains of your miserable hide."

"_Shi-Shiun-sama!" _

"But know this," Shiun warned in a chilling tone that drained the darkness itself, "should I learn of any ingratitude or treachery against my beloved general of your doing, you will rue the day you accepted his mercy. I will _personally_ make certain of that."

As the form of the Demon Lord melted away, the chill of the dungeon deepened in the sinister void marred only by the leathery breaths of its prisoner.

* * *

TBC


	10. The Decline

A/N: Finally, I can truly say that we're at the halfway point. I hope I actually have the stamina to see this through all the way (one of the most unmotivating situations is when you know how it's going to go more or less, and you wonder why you have to write it when you already know; though of course, you usually discover new paths when you actually write it- a professional rant that basically means I need to be more disciplined as a writer-in-training). Things are fairly light at this point, though I think future events may not always be as comfortable. Lengthy explanations consume the chapter after this, my apologies in advance for next week.

Do enjoy.

* * *

The Decline

* * *

_The Scriptures speak of an age of great upheaval and chaos, when the power of the Buddha and the Kami would wane in the last moments of a cycle leading to a new epoch. They say a chosen one will descend from Heaven, a King of Light who will liberate a world from the maddened rampage of demons weaving destruction upon the land, granting salvation to the pious and the faithful. _

_Now, surrounded by the torn bodies of the people he had sworn before the gods to protect, and the burning rubble and scorched fields of the land he had promised his lord to defend, Doumeki stood alone in the middle of the endless desolation, wondering where this supposed saviour was now. _

_For surely all the light of the age had been extinguished and all meaning in life had already been devoured by the rage of demons and the folly of men. _

_In his arms, Watanuki's limp body had already begun to feel like a corpse, stiff and cold. In truth, the Shinto priest had not intended for the soul transfer to have been lethal, at least not immediately. Even if it was just until the moon had risen to the zenith, he had wanted to watch the patient, slow breaths of slumber in those delicate, soft features, to feel the warmth in the vulnerable bundle rolled helplessly within his embrace. But the gods must have been watching, and justice prevailed. Even in his final moments, an oath breaker should find no solace. As soon as the last of Watanuki's soul stretched into and within the confines of his own, the young Onmyouji expired in his erstwhile protector's arms, now the arms of his murderer. _

_Yet, even in death, even as the fiery hues of sunset had sunk to mere ghostly gossamer over the western horizon, the paling, sorrowful corpse in his arms was the most precious existence in the world. After all, did Watanuki's soul not pulse right next to that stilled heart? Did the pangs of that gentle soul's grief not ripple in a chest pressed right next to that breathless bosom? Watanuki, his Kimihiro, was still here, and he would never suffer the slightest pain ever again. Doumeki would make sure of that; had made sure of that. _

"_Be at peace." He consoled, not to the fallen form of his beloved, but to the restless soul that stirred within his own. "The blame is all mine, and I alone will pay for it." _

_As Watanuki's essence struggled even more desperately against Doumeki's protective hold, the priest raised undaunted golden eyes to the wisps of darkness spewing forth from the distant eastern sky. The beginnings of a foul infernal storm that would rain blood upon the earth as hungry claws tore at mere human flesh to claim what was rightfully his. _

_Doumeki readied the last embers of his sacred power, provoking a stab of fear from where Watanuki's soul shivered in his own. _

_Let them come. _

_

* * *

_

It was well into the evening when Engel should have been at his busiest, manning the bar while Kurou handled the tables. Raucous, drunk mirth should have been chorusing in bursting bouts interwoven with Keiki's shrewd humour and Saeki's sly innocence.

"I suppose it's all the hate crimes happening lately," Engel rationalized while he idly wiped a stray speck of dust on the brightly polished bar top.

"It's a bad time to be gay," Kurou agreed as he leaned against an adjacent arbour-styled screen that discreetly covered the washroom behind. The plastic creepers and fabric petals woven into the lattice framework gave the half-dressed youth, clad only in carefully faded blue denims that revealed a tease of his boxers in the peeking dark cotton waistband, the impression of a male model posing for a centrefold. There was unfortunately not a single customer in the empty dining area to appreciate the lightly bronzed muscles, tensing occasionally in the cool temperature of the room. The beautiful swell of muscles over the sloping pelvic crests guarded a well-toned abdomen that mocked the pretences of the muscled cuirasses of ancient Roman warriors with its gentle sturdiness.

"Get your shirt if you're cold." Engel suggested while he tried to ignore the nagging voice in his head that was demanding if the café Master was actually checking out his young charge.

'I'm not, but I wouldn't be human if I didn't appreciate _that_!' Engel mentally snapped at his conscience that in this instance sounded awfully like his yakuza boyfriend, Akiyoshi.

"A casualty of Keiki's wrestling match with Saeki… knocked my green tea all over it. It's the only one that goes with these jeans…" Kurou explained dully, suppressing a yawn at the end.

"You boys…" Engel sighed, glancing at his watch and at the silent front door and vacant streets.

"Should we just close early tonight?" He pondered aloud, but eventually turned to Kurou, directing the question to the youth who blinked in mild surprise.

"Eh? You're asking me? Mn… I guess I wouldn't mind checking up on Saeki and Keiki… they've been awfully quiet." Kurou remarked a little pensively.

Engel nodded agreeably. "I can check on Doumeki-san and Watanuki-kun, they-" Engel stopped abruptly, chuckling as he watched the colour drain out from Kurou's cheeks. "It's fine… I don't get why you're so alarmed by their little petty outbursts. Ok, I was surprised at first- Watanuki-kun is usually so well-mannered, but it's reassuring to see him get worked up now and then."

"Reassuring?" Kurou asked doubtfully.

"Well, he's been so quiet since he's stayed with us, I mean, thinking about all that's happened to him lately... He's finally showing a bit of colour in his cheeks. Besides…" Engel beamed at Kurou, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "Fighting so heatedly with a stranger you've just met- that only means two things- you've met a sworn rival or…" Engel winked at an uncomprehending Kurou.

"… or?" Kurou prompted when Engel only grinned conspiratorially.

"Isn't it obvious?" Engel exclaimed exasperatedly. "Destined lovers!"

"… Master, you've been reading too many BL magazines." Kurou deadpanned as he turned making his way to the stairs, leaving a sheepish Engel chuckling weakly to himself.

* * *

Doumeki awoke to the sense of a roaming dampness and a trailing chill. He mumbled something incoherent, his lids folding back drowsily when he heard that youthful tenor whisper apologetically from somewhere beside him.

"Sorry, you were sweating so I thought I'd wipe you down a bit." Watanuki explained, the sound of water trickling into a… bowl coaxing a little more of the Shinto priest's consciousness into the world of the waking.

"What time is it?" He asked blearily, his voice coming out husky. Doumeki cleared his throat preparing to repeat his question more clearly, but Watanuki was already answering his question.

"Ten; it's still the middle of the night. Is it cold? I've turned the air-conditioning off, but…" Watanuki asked concernedly, hesitating to rest the cool cloth against the young man's forearm.

"It's fine." Doumeki murmured, blinking the tendrils of sleep away from his senses. There was the faint aroma of lavender in the air. Was it some sort of bath scent?

"Engel-san is right you know, you really should be at a hospital." Watanuki remarked as he gently worked the cloth against the hot skin. "You're burning up, and my stitches are amateurish at best. You'd get better painkillers too."

"Probably." Doumeki agreed as he watched Watanuki massage the cloth around his shoulder.

Watanuki raised his eyes to that tired but stoic face. "We could get a cab now if you want," he offered.

Doumeki met his gaze with watchful golden eyes. "No. You might run away if I do."

Watanuki's shoulders tensed for a brief moment, before the young Onmyouji hid his surprise by turning to rinse the cloth in the washbowl again. "What could you possibly want with me?"

"… I don't know," Doumeki answered truthfully, drawing a sceptical stare from dark lavender eyes, "but there's something… I know that. I'm searching for something."

"And if you find what you're looking for?" Watanuki half challenged, the light in his eyes at once fearful and defiant.

"I have orders to kill." Doumeki replied without hesitation.

Watanuki couldn't help the involuntary shudder, and the soaked washcloth he had been in the middle of wringing out slipped from his hand, smacking the solution in the washbasin.

"Was that a threat?" Watanuki demanded softly.

"No… but you do understand now, what I am here to do?" Doumeki elicited, the faintest hint of expectation in his tone.

"Hah!" Watanuki scoffed derisively. "You talk big for someone bedridden." But he wouldn't meet Doumeki's steady gaze.

"I'm not completely defenceless," Watanuki objected gravely, "but there hasn't been a time I've been weaker than I am now." The admission hung between them like an ominous shadow creeping over Watanuki's silence.

"Are you testing me?" Watanuki wanted to know, his icy calmness edged with sharp danger.

"If I am, then I'm doing it at the risk of my life." Doumeki pointed out. The priest grunted as he struggled with his elbows to sit up, drawing Watanuki's gaze to him.

"You," Doumeki began as he leaned back against the tufted black leather headboard, "you're a mystery. Why did you save me? Why… why were you crying?"

Watanuki's violet eyes widened in shock, and noticing the priest's plainly confused golden gaze appraising them curiously, quickly averted their focus to random points in the room as a sputtered explanation tumbled clumsily from the Onmyouji.

"I wasn't crying! I was just... those were just… aaaaAAAAH! Weren't you the one whimpering because of a little needle prick?" He countered savagely.

"I don't recall that." Doumeki noted calmly. "Though your 'little needle prick' hurt quite a bit, especially since you were so clumsy with it."

"I-it couldn't be helped. I've never done it to another person before!" Watanuki retorted defensively.

"And you kept on stabbing and stabbing for hours- who's there?" Doumeki's abruptly barked challenge made Watanuki jump, but he too had heard the muffled squeak.

A reluctant short couple of raps heralded the slow and hesitant outward swing of the door, revealing a blushing Engel, green eyes darting evasively about the room.

"Engel-san! Eh? What were you standing behind the door for?" Watanuki asked unsuspectingly.

The café Master ogled at Watanuki as if the youth had just trained a gun on him, and his reply came rushed and anxious.

"I wasn't eavesdropping or anything- or I didn't mean to. Ah! But, but it's not as if I heard anything… nothing I didn't hear anything… er… I really just wanted to see if you needed anything, supper or a nightcap… you're underage but, haha… I guess I could overlook it this time… but you know… haven't I been overlooking it this whole time with the alcohol and putting that into the coffee, and… yeah… Lucky for us I've got a friend who takes care of inspections and the legal bit… but, er, then again, back when I was your age I could drink a sailor under the table!" Engel cringed at his own babbling. Nevertheless, he raised a narrowed pleading gaze at his two young guests.

"Er…" Watanuki attempted to follow when the penny dropped with an awful, horrible clarity. As the telling prickly warmth crept up his nape, he lowered his head on the executioner's block with the damning question. "Engel-san… how long have you been standing outside?"

"Eh? Ah! Well, that, hah, funny that- but, I mean, it's not wrong funny, or _funny_ funny, just an awkward coincidence funny..." Engel tried but his forced smile fell completely before Watanuki's twitching brow. "Sorry."

"Little… needle… prick? From… there?" Watanuki asked tonelessly.

Engel sighed gustily. "… Sorry. I really didn't mean to, and the door was ajar, so…"

"Ah… your little needle prick…" Doumeki echoed, finally catching up.

"_Shut… up…_"

* * *

Shiro's earliest memory was of the numbing bite of cold and the obliterating whiteness of the burying snow. Unlike his arctic fox cousins, his white pelt was an accident of conception, not a mark of elemental adaptation. His brothers had not taken kindly to an albino runt, and his brief life had been nothing but a chaotic tempest of vindictive bites and terrified yelps. He knew that sooner or later they would conspire to kill him, and rather than that, he thought it a kinder fate to die by the bright, beautiful snow than to be mauled by his bodily kin. He just hadn't expected it to be so cold, or to take so long.

His mother… probably wouldn't be searching for him. This winter, unnatural as far as the whispers in the den told him, made it difficult enough for her to keep the litter alive. If anything, it spared her the trouble of removing him to some distant snowfield on her own. That was the way things were- the weak and sickly had to be removed lest they compromised the survival of the strong, there was no malice in it. A surge of aching warmth swelled within him, part affection, part longing. If only he had been born in that captivating red, gleaming vividly even in the palest moonlight, burning past melting snow, then things could have been different…

Perhaps, in another life…

His frozen ears twitched imperceptibly, as the sound of footsteps crunched in the snow. Primal instinct sent him bristling in alarm, and his limbs jerked briefly before realizing that they had long lost the strength to stand, let alone run.

No peaceful death then. Well, he had tried, and this was still better than being torn apart while the familiar scent of his home yet filled his lungs. At least, this way, he would be passing on the gift of life to another creature of nature, cold and alone in the merciless winter.

He whimpered in surprise as he found himself being lifted into sudden warmth.

What… was this?

Something brushed the snow from his pelt, combing through his pale fur in strokes that sent shocks of heat into his tiny, shivering body. It felt… incredible. He struggled to see the thing that was granting him such comfort, slivers of his golden eyes fighting to widen, in vain.

Was this death?

"_I am not death, though I have brought death to many." _A voice, deep but soft echoed from within the same place he thought and felt.

Ah… well, that was fine then. He was too tired to ponder it any further. He was just grateful that at the end, he had known such consolation.

"_You are pleased to die?" _The voice seemed surprised.

Pleased? He was… contented.

"_You are a strange one." _

Perhaps. He had always been different. Maybe all albino foxes were this way.

"_You will not die," _the voice promised firmly. _"This premature winter was started by foolish humans- a battle of sorcery aided by ancient demons revered as gods. To think that such things continue to this age…"_

The cub listened politely though only out of respect for his benefactor. Wars between humans meant nothing to him.

"_But they have relics and powerful herbs and pills that can grant you much more than just survival in this petty cold. It can grant you new life, and the strength to live it."_

The cub didn't really understand what was being said, he only wished to sleep. It was so deliciously warm…

"_You will come with me?" _The voice invited with a tempting tenderness.

The albino fox blinked and nuzzled its freezing nose against the precious heat radiating off this mysterious stranger. He didn't want to lose it. Ah, he had grown greedy. Was that acceptable?

"_You desire more warmth?" _The voice asked, and without waiting for an answer, tucked the fox cub into something that made him tremble with the sheer indulgence.

Where was this? This was… the stranger's pelt? It was simply amazing!

Laughter echoed in the cub's mind, and a careful pressure pressed it against the welcome heat radiating off the firm body.

"_Do you have a name?" _The voice wanted to know.

Name? The cub was confused. Was he so frozen that his body had lost its scent?

"_So you don't have a name… not in words… hmmn… how does 'Shiro' sound? You are an enchanting white after all." _

His heart racing, the cub found himself quite unable to respond. Wasn't the stranger offended by the pallid, lifeless fur?

"_Hm? Of course not. It's very pretty." _The voice replied matter-of-factly. _"So is 'Shiro' fine?"_

For some reason, a powerful urge to mewl stretched his throat taut. He rolled up against the

stranger in a tighter ball. If the stranger liked the name then he would like it to be his.

"_Shiro."_

Yes.

"_I will take care of you."_

Yes. Thank you. What… what is your name?

"… _it's… Shiun."_

Shi… un… He didn't know many names, but he could tell that it was a kind name. Shiun.

* * *

Watanuki sighed softly as he shut the room door behind him, careful to be quiet for Doumeki who had drifted off to sleep. Thank goodness for that. He didn't think he could last another minute of conversation with that arrogant, pompous, spoiled prince from the land of Tend-To-Me. Drawing a fortifying breath, he tread silently up to the slumbering Shinto priest, checking to see if the convalescent rest was untroubled. Just a few hours ago Doumeki had been drenched in sweat, his breaths irregular though his body seemed locked in its unconsciousness. Aside from the sporadic twitch of his lids, Doumeki seemed to be resting peacefully.

"So stubborn." Watanuki murmured, then shivered, his arms instinctively wrapping around his bare shoulders. The thin cotton singlet patterned with silver arrows (one of the few articles of clothing from Keiki's offered pile that Watanuki actually dared to wear), wasn't particularly suitable right after a bath. Rubbing his arms, he turned to the dressing table searching for a comb to deal with his damp and mussed hair. For once, he was glad that he was still missing his glasses, they would have fogged up in all his puffing from the chill. Watanuki didn't like the cold very much, though ironically enough he had been told that he had an icy touch.

Picking up the simple clear plastic comb, he ran it through his dark hair in what he vainly hoped would be a smooth backstroke, and winced when it caught halfway.

"Clumsy." A soft murmur spoke from behind him.

Watanuki spun around, eyes wide with alarm.

"When did you-" He began but the gilded gaze swallowed his protest in its depths. Watanuki stiffened as arms, a darker bronze than they were in the penumbral illumination of the dim orange lighting, circled around the back of his head. Fingers, warm and gentle coaxed his frozen grip to relax while tugging out the buried comb without noticeably snagging a strand of the mystified youth's hair.

"Doumeki-" Watanuki began but was cut off by a blur that halted abruptly before him. The comb, offered almost against his chin, hovering just above it. When the Onmyouji looked past its translucent edge to the insolent perpetrator of the gesture, he saw Doumeki's half-smiling grin. An inner voice alerted him to something, but it was still distant and incoherent. The Shinto priest's larger frame cast Watanuki in obscuring veils of shadow, as if the world of brightness lay on another face of the world, while he beheld the countenance of its darker twin.

"You… shouldn't be up…" Watanuki breathed, inexplicably seized by a deep sense of foreboding. His voiceless remonstration slipped shakily into the light-diffused shadows, sliding off the young priest's notice like moonlight against a dragonfly's wingtip.

"I should be. How long were you hoping I'd sleep?" Doumeki replied, his arms lowering, but not back to his sides.

"Until you're better!" Watanuki exclaimed, rallying his indignation at what he construed to be a patronizing tone. "And, I'm not _hoping _for you to do anything."

Doumeki sighed and in a sudden movement, pulled Watanuki's waist against his own, startling a gasp from the Onmyouji.

"What are you-!" Watanuki growled, a fist raised instinctively, but his blow was forestalled when the taller youth rested his forehead against the Onmyouji's.

"Tell me you remember something." He quietly begged, the soft plea riding upon a warm breath that coursed down the bridge of Watanuki's nose.

Watanuki felt his stomach lurch uncomfortably, and he fought to keep his voice steady. "Something?"

The silent pause between them stretched to a point where Watanuki wondered if this was all just a somnambular episode and that Doumeki had returned to true sleep. "Dou… meki?" He called hesitantly.

"Kimihiro- or so I'd like to respond, but you've never approved of me using your given name." Doumeki whispered in a hushed voice, a trace of sadness in the light-hearted teasing.

Watanuki's breaths came short and broken, but he found the courage to blurt the thoughts he had been shutting out for the past two days.

"_Shizuka-dono_…"

Arms tightened around his waist, strong and tauntingly solid. He never knew how unfair dreams could be until that moment. Yet that grave, serious tone was cruelly gentle, unyieldingly unfalsifiable.

"Shizuka; you'll call me that." Doumeki ordered, a toying smile playing on those thinly spread lips.

"You bastard." Watanuki whispered hoarsely, biting his lower lip as the scene blurred dangerously in his vision and he leaned in to hide his imminent surrender.

* * *

TBC


	11. Fractured

A/N: While I did everything in my power to make this chapter as clear and painless as possible, difficulties may remain. If you manage to follow the dialogue without any problems, you have my salute.

Please enjoy.

P.S. Sorry for this being a little late. I may be late for the next chapter because of a little writer's block... I've never been so stuck on smut before;;;

* * *

Fractured

* * *

Watanuki could feel the firm rhythm of Doumeki's breaths against his burning cheek. He could hear the rapid heartbeats confessing the endearing emotion that the calm hold of the priest's arms belied.

"But this can't be real," Watanuki protested aloud, slightly muffled by the rough bandages swathing the taller youth's torso, "or it doesn't make sense."

Doumeki took a deep breath, holding it for a few moments before releasing it slowly. "I was reborn, like you. I wanted to come back. I'm guessing you retained your memories as well?"

Watanuki hesitated, his hands clutching Doumeki's shoulders from behind. "I had dreams… they told me those dreams were visions of a past life…"

"They?" Doumeki queried interestedly.

"The people who brought me up. Not my parents, I never knew them. They were three senior Onmyouji practitioners and a young clairvoyant Miko." Watanuki explained in a quiet voice, his violet eyes growing dark. He had left out someone, but he had too much to deal with now to bring up his rogue guardian spirit.

"I retained mine." Doumeki informed the young Onmyouji, his golden eyes lowered to the messy dark hair of the head nestled so vulnerably against his chest.

"Then why did you pretend not to know me from before, from our past life?" Watanuki countered unhappily, though he did not relinquish his perch.

"I didn't. It's complicated." Doumeki replied, a tinge of regret in his usual heavy monotone.

"This… isn't a dream is it?" Watanuki whispered, hating how brittle he sounded, but desperately needing to ask.

Doumeki drew back a little, lifting Watanuki's chin so that their eyes met across the tamely lit darkness. "I'll explain anything you want, but this isn't a dream."

Violet eyes swam with a brimming brightness as they beheld the solemn light in golden ones. "Shizuka-dono?" Watanuki asked in a bare whisper, challenging the fates to spring their cruel trap.

"Shizuka-" Doumeki softly insisted, "since when does a man have to be so reserved with what is rightfully his?"

"When have I ever given cause to be accused of being reserved with you?" Watanuki retorted with a weak smile bordered in tear tracks. Yet in the next moment, he shook his head and pulled away from Doumeki, retreating to the empty bed still rumpled with the signs of the priest's stay. He didn't turn as he felt Doumeki's presence beside him.

"What's wrong?" Doumeki wanted to know, hovering by the Onmyouji but restraining himself from bridging the distance, even with a simple touch.

"This isn't real. Those events… those dreams… I don't know what they are, but even if they were visions of the past… how is it possible that two people who died so many years ago, came back exactly as they were then?" Watanuki argued, warping a tented line in the sheets with a white-knuckled grip.

"You came back." Doumeki pointed out.

Watanuki's head snapped up, turning to the impassively watching priest with a frustrated glare.

"Alone," he began, voice trembling, "alone it was fine. A hallucination on my own part, a vision of the past where of course I'd see myself as how I am now, but, but, with you here, with you telling me you remember everything-"

"It confirms everything?" Doumeki finished, unnervingly sedate, though his eyes seemed to penetrate Watanuki's thoughts. "Or prophesizes what is to come?"

Watanuki watched the priest wordlessly for a few moments before sinking into his cupped hands.

"I made you sacrifice all those people… all that… real?" Watanuki asked indistinctly through his hands.

Sighing, Doumeki sat beside the hiding youth, his hand reaching out but hesitating to clasp the Onmyouji's shoulder. "Whatever you imagined you did, you've spent centuries repenting for it."

Watanuki raised his head and turned to Doumeki again, noticing the outstretched hand and taking it into his own before he could stop himself. When those fingers tightened firmly against his, he rested their sealed hands on his lap, his gaze searching the Shinto priest's unreadable golden eyes.

"Centuries?" He repeated in question, noting the reluctant tilt of the Shinto priest's head.

"In the limbo our souls were trapped in… you stopped a powerful demon from reviving." Doumeki began vaguely, his gilded gaze sliding away from Watanuki's. "Had that demon revived as it was, countless of lives would have been lost."

"Doumeki…?" Watanuki urged when the Shinto priest lapsed into silence and stared blankly at the shadowed ceiling.

"I don't know much. Parts of my memory have been suppressed." He answered vaguely, but pre-empted Watanuki's pursuing question. "It's better if we start from the beginning, even though… we don't have much time, there's no point in not making much sense."

"Don't have much time?" Watanuki squeezed Doumeki's hand instinctively, drawing a rare, uncomplicated smile from the Shinto priest.

"Missing me already?" Doumeki teased as his smile narrowed into a smirk.

"You know, I'm beginning to realize that with or without your memories, you're still a colossal jerk." Watanuki noted coldly, though he couldn't bring himself to release his grip.

"With or without my memories, I'm still Doumeki." The priest affirmed, eyes suddenly focused and sober upon Watanuki's slow frown. "Do you remember how you died?"

"You were trying to save me." Watanuki evaded with deliberate offhandedness.

"I killed you." Doumeki corrected brutally. "I stole your soul and you died from it."

"What of it?" Watanuki dismissed, violet eyes veiled beneath briefly lowered lids, before emerging dark with tight emotion. "About the only thing I'm actually mad about is that my last thoughts were of how you were going to be torn to pieces because of me."

"That might not have been what happened," Doumeki whispered, his gaze falling away from widened violet eyes, "I don't think that's what happened. It isn't likely."

"What're you saying?" Watanuki mumbled in confusion.

"I have to start from the beginning." Doumeki reiterated, stressing the words in a leaden tone.

"Because we don't have much time." Watanuki repeated the priest's earlier warning with a helpless smile, but he nodded in understanding. "Ok. I'm listening."

For a moment, Doumeki watched the melancholic acceptance with a pained frown, but he tightened his grip on their joined hands and resumed his explanation.

"Murder, forgiven or otherwise, is a heinous crime, bearing a terrible price. When I killed you, I hurt more than just my conscience. I believe that I damaged my very existence, and my very humanity."

"Stop saying that you killed me!" Watanuki interjected angrily. "I don't know what happened to you, but conjectures made on a false premise-"

Doumeki stopped Watanuki by brushing the Onmyouji's flushed cheek. "It brings me no pleasure in admitting the fact, nor do I do it to torture myself. My body, my soul, the very essence of who I was and the potential of my deeds were lined in cracks, made fragile in the face of my crime. A weakness for the demons to exploit.

"Back then, my plan wasn't just to absorb your soul only to have the demons take you after they unravelled mine. The spell I used bound our souls together, forcing their fates to be intertwined. If my soul was lost, so would yours, and if your soul was consumed, so was mine.

"When the demons arrived, they easily subdued what defence I could put up, and they captured me. There was the usual infighting, with casualties serving to enrich the victors until a black serpent, silver lynx, and a snow monkey tripartite alliance of demons, engorged with their former comrades, decided to sink their teeth into your soul.

"It was then that they realized that they couldn't, not without destroying themselves. There is… special significance to one's ability to procreate, and the power to evoke life drains one's spiritual essence and purity. Conversely, a body that has not drawn upon its procreative ability, possesses certain qualities that grant it, and the contained soul, protection."

Watanuki blinked at Doumeki's impassive appraisal as the Shinto priest paused to check if the Onmyouji still followed the recounting.

"Are you saying that- because you were-" Watanuki prompted uncertainly.

"Virgin. A seal was drawn upon me when I was five, as with all boys in my family. So long as I maintained my sexual purity, it would hold, and amongst other things, any demon touching my soul would be incinerated." Doumeki unabashedly explained, though he noticed the faint blush that was colouring Watanuki's cheeks. "Why? I did tell you back then that I had never lain with a woman- or a man, for that matter. I believe you had asked because of some rumours that I was spotted in the forest in the midst of a tryst with an enchanting stranger who carried a baby in her arms. It turned out to be a vengeful spirit I was trying to peacefully exorcise."

"I don't remember that." Watanuki admitted. Trying to hide his embarrassment, he smirked with an affectionate viciousness. "So you died a virgin, huh?"

The laughter in Watanuki's eyes was abruptly extinguished by the anguished light in Doumeki's, which was followed by a sharp breath the Shinto priest took as he readied his answer.

"I don't truly know the circumstances of my passing, not as the Doumeki I am now anyway. I remember being drugged, seduced, tortured, all in a timeless cave deep in the heart of some mountain. How many months and years I spent clinging on to your soul for solace I will never know, but the only thing I remember next was regaining conscious in an astral limbo, my soul wrapped in yours." Doumeki finished, a faint strain in his voice.

"Unimaginable suffering…" Watanuki whispered, a pang crushing the breath in his lungs as he tried to picture the glossed over horror. Doumeki shook his head slowly and continued.

"When I awoke in limbo, it wasn't from a deep unconscious sleep. They were fading, but the sharp, twisting auras of hatred, fear and desire were still pulsing vividly in my consciousness."

"It's not hard to understand why-" Watanuki consoled but Doumeki shook his head again.

"Those emotions were very dark and intense, much more powerful than any human could hope to contain." Doumeki's haunted gaze swept over Watanuki's uncomprehending expression and wrenched away. "They were at a demonic level."

Watanuki opened and shut his mouth abortively, but finally persisted with an attempt at reasoning the information. "Are you saying the demons possessed you?"

"It is possible… but unlikely… when I awoke there was no sign of another presence aside from yours, demonic or otherwise." Doumeki released a long breath with an effort that seemed to weigh his shoulders down. "A demon able to freely possess my soul would not have hesitated to devour your soul and mine, and then escape the astral prison, but our souls were both intact… though yours… yours… something had savaged yours. Your lines of energy and resonance were broken and twisted. Only your mysterious power held you together. It took… a long time… for you to reform… and even then, you did not regain full sentience."

"You're saying that you did that to me." Watanuki quietly concluded for him.

"There's strong evidence that suggests that." Doumeki agreed, but he watched in amazement as Watanuki toppled gently over his lap, their clasped hands pressed close against the thin fabric of Watanuki's warmed cotton singlet. Doumeki rested his free hand over the silken strands of the Onmyouji's drying ribbons of dark hair, but his puzzlement hung unspoken between them.

"When you found me, unconscious by the roadside shrine, and took me in, I can still remember how secretly happy I was deep inside, despite how much of a fight I put up about wanting to leave." Watanuki began in a soft murmur, his lids fluttering shut as Doumeki stroked his head. "One time, some of your relatives played a trick on me and trapped me in a spatial loop whilst I was looking for some herbs in the eastern woods. I was so panicked that I didn't notice the magic at first. I kept crashing about, collecting scratches and bruises, until I calmed down enough to try sensing for you, and found something blocking my way.

"It was a barrier, of sacred making. My first reaction was that you had finally decided to rid yourself of me-"

"Your first reaction was to smash that barrier and scream for me to get my cowardly ass down to face you properly. You terrified my cousins who gave the game away fairly quickly and clumsily." Doumeki amended with a nostalgic grin.

"But we duelled anyway. I would have won if not for your cheating." Watanuki grumbled, a small smile spreading along his lips nevertheless.

"I had nothing to do with the rice cake you slipped on." Doumeki refuted mildly. "I didn't press the advantage in any case, and that match was inconclusive."

"Except the whole village was cheering your underhand victory." Watanuki pointed out with bad grace.

"I believe they were congratulating me on 'quelling the princess' tantrum' when I carried your dizzy form back home. Apparently, my cousins had been caught skulking around the forest by some woodsmen, and the villagers were quick to put two and two together. My cousins were given a little smack on the wrist for that stunt, sent to perform purifying rituals for all the wells, ponds and lakes in our lord's realm."

"That was a crazy village… but they were good people." Watanuki admitted fondly. "So my dreams are true, and they really died that way, ripped to shreds by their own possessed kin."

"Watanuki…"

"I cried a lot that day. I tried to hide it, because I was too ashamed to be seen with such crocodile tears. I had known that that would have been the ultimate end. I suppose, you felt that way too- that you were responsible." Watanuki glanced at Doumeki, watching the golden eyes peer over him with a patient sorrow.

"They were my responsibility." He answered simply.

"But you didn't shed a tear. Even when your cousins screamed to be saved, cut down before our very eyes, you didn't cry, not even in rage. At the time, I thought you had fallen into a silent despair, but having thought about it for over a decade in this second life, I finally realized that it wasn't simply that. The difference between us was that I could cry because I wished to blame myself, and you couldn't because you had already accepted the burden of all the sin for yourself. My conscience still needed to point out to me that I was to blame; you already knew that each bloody blow was by your hand, of your doing. It frightens me to think that you've held that belief to be true all this while."

Watanuki released their clasped hands and rolled his body up against Doumeki's bare arm, his lips perched timidly in a kiss across the dull gleam of the young man's shoulder. With a soft, brief hum of contentment, he draped an arm comfortingly across the sinewy back to the priest's other, smooth shoulder.

"There's something else you have to know-" Doumeki began, his violet eyes caressing Watanuki's upturned glance with a hushed light.

"Say it. You won't be satisfied until you do." Watanuki softly acceded, resting his cheek against the reassuring strength corded beneath the surface of the smooth shoulder.

"I can't remember how I died, how our souls got to that astral limbo, or what happened while we were in there before I awoke to find your savaged soul, and yet, I told you that Doumeki retained all his memory of our past life."

"Those were traumatic events- I don't even remember that astral limbo you keep mentioning." Watanuki answered, his breaths tickling across the slope of the Shinto priest's collarbone. Doumeki was not satisfied with the offered explanation.

"I don't remember much of my rebirth," he went on, "but the priests who cared for the orphan that I was, never told me much, except that my mother died in the difficult labour, and that my father was missing. I always had the impression that they were hiding something. The truth came to light when I was eleven years of age and started to have dreams, dreams of our past."

"I had them much younger." Watanuki noted with some surprise and Doumeki quietly nodded.

"There's a reason for that and I'll get to it in a moment. The dreams I had confused me at first, since I had no recollection of what they were, but they were so vivid I couldn't ignore them. I was obsessed with what they meant, and one day, I snuck out into the forests ringing the mountain temple I lived in. I knew, from their secretive behaviour over my past, that the priests who cared for me would not be supportive of what I was about to do."

Watanuki grinned as he imagined a young Doumeki dodging low branches and undergrowth while sneaking conspiratorial backward glances to the recently clambered wall of an ancient temple. Doumeki continued his story, unaware of the Onmyouji's secret fun.

"There was a divination spell to force visions of one's past life that I had found in the old scripture room. It wasn't a very large jump to hypothesize that my dreams were of a life once lived, and I aimed to verify it once and for all. The spell called for a natural body of 'living' water, water that had a replenishing source and that was active in its cycle with nature. There was a mountain lake that I was allowed to swim in occasionally in summer, a natural choice for the spell.

"The preparations went smoothly. I asked for the blessings of the gods of air, water and the mountain, calling upon my own patron deity as my consciousness streamed with my sacred power, delving deep into the hidden link within me into the Akasha to review the story of my past life- or tried to.

"It was as if I had been hurled into the midst of two titanic forces, each burning into the other, bleeding into the other. It's like two sides of a coin, each wanting to face the heavens, but each only able to do so at the expense of the other, so they end up spinning madly against each other- I'm… not sure if you'd understand…" Doumeki finished doubtfully.

Watanuki nodded wordlessly over Doumeki's shoulder. Spiritual experiences were difficult to explain in words that were designed to deal with regular phenomena.

"Just like the flip of a coin, it was pure fortuitous chance that my spiritual self collided into what, for want of a better description, I'll call my lucid half, one face of the coin. What I became from that encounter, well, you behold the result right now." Doumeki paused to meet Watanuki's silently assessing gaze, returning it with an expectant one. "It was like something had clicked into place. I knew everything… or nearly everything… my death… that period before my lucid self awoke in limbo… the knowledge of those particular events are perhaps stored in that other face of the coin, which was close by and yet completely locked away. I tried to reach for it, but- It was as if I stood on the door that that had closed on it, and was trying to force the door open by pulling on a chain attached to the handle. It seemed impossible. At the time, that didn't bother me too much. I was still revelling in the discovery I has made."

"But the discovery didn't stay- when we met you didn't recognize me." Watanuki pointed out. Doumeki nodded, dark brows furrowed above lidded eyes.

"That's because our ending was quite… something. An eleven-year-old boy looked through the eyes of a man who went through… those events. At that time, the eleven-year-old boy only wanted to escape. I can't really say how it happened, even though I have all of 'Buffer Doumeki's' memories, but when he next awoke, he- _I_ was surrounded by my chagrined but relieved caretakers, with no memory of what I had seen in the memory visions, or of my lucid self." Doumeki quietly confessed.

Watanuki struggled to digest all the revelations for a while, but his curiosity eventually urged his hesitant question.

"Buffer… Doumeki?"

Doumeki grinned, a hint of bitterness in his self-mocking smile. "A term I coined, in the same way I called myself Lucid Doumeki. Buffer Doumeki is Doumeki without any recollection or influence from the past, created as a result of the two opposing identities grappling ceaselessly from within Doumeki's soul. Since the two identities, lucid and… the other…, are mutually exclusive, the natural order must have evolved a false, buffer identity to cope with the paradox. Well… all of this is conjecture, based on the limited knowledge open to me. I don't really know." He admitted with another flash of that crooked grin.

Watanuki gave a short hollow chuckle, rocking his head dolefully as he stared into the shadowed ceiling. "And I was taking you seriously for a moment. Just like you to sound so confident over nothing." He jibed with an empty smile.

"Watanuki-"

"Well then, Doumeki-sensei, I have a question. I understand why eleven-year-old Doumeki would find it hard to live with those memories, but how did a false buffer identity eject a real identity that had reasserted itself?"

Doumeki turned his face away, a deep swelling breath ebbing out of his frame like the rush of an icy midnight tide. "I chose to let go. I knew that the balance had been upset, between my lucid self and the other. By joining with the false buffer, I left the other identity unchecked, and all the signs warned me that that other was a dangerous, even demonic, identity that had to be locked away, and only my lucid self could be trusted to manage that, as it already had before."

"So you're going to let go again." Watanuki accused, all pretence of undaunted wit crumbling with his heated tone.

"I have to." Doumeki declared unequivocally, though he couldn't face the Onmyouji, even as Watanuki drew away from him. Yet, golden eyes darted urgently towards the slender youth's back when he felt Watanuki's presence shifting off the bed.

"Where are you-" He instinctively demanded, but Watanuki rapped back without letting him finish.

"What's it to you? You come when you want and leave when you please, but _I _have to wait patiently by your side?" The Onmyouji snapped, his back turned resolutely before the Shinto priest, though Doumeki could see the shaded profile of Watanuki's face.

"I can't come out just because I want to! I could come because…" Doumeki paused mid-retort, his steeply arched brows relaxing above lowering lids.

"Because _what_?" Watanuki asked in a quiet, ominous tone.

"Because you called for me." Doumeki replied wanly, unveiling eyes that glowed with a tired light. "With your tears; in your touch. Watanuki-"

"What?" The Onmyouji demanded again, his voice thick with poorly restrained emotion.

Golden eyes hardened in the amber-tinted darkness.

"I came to make you mine."

* * *

TBC


	12. Due You

Warnings: Lemony Goodness, DouWata (WataDou)?, AU

A/N: The long awaited (?) update. I must confess I am risking a lot in terms of personal time for RL stuff by attempting to write this chapter, but I just hate unfinished business. I'm not entirely happy with this chapter either, and I think some of the things in this chapter might bother some people. I would love to **spare anyone the pain of reading this if they think they are _inflexible with who does what in the DouWata pairing_**, **and obviously, anyone who_ objects to explicit intimate scenes between same-sex male pairings_**. All the same I put in quite a bit of effort into this, trying to get it just right, but you can tell me what you think, provided you remember to be kind and considerate with your words while being honest. Writers typically slave over their work, and it's not very difficult to remember your comments are going to be read by a very real and emotionally-active human being.

*Sigh* I apologize for any undue harshness. Life has been more than difficult lately, and my patience is somewhat strained. I _am _sincerely happy to share this with you guys though.

Enjoy.

* * *

Due You

"_Make me yours?_" Watanuki hissed, turning slowly to face the rising Shinto priest.

"Yes." Doumeki's ardent gaze weakened the reckless fury in Watanuki's, but a burst of defiance immediately flared within the dark amethyst depths.

"Hah! Make me yours? No one even knows who _you_ really are! Lucid? Buffer? Even _demonic_?" Watanuki lashed out in blind rage, unaware of the tears that were falling across his snarl. "You don't have the _right _to make _anything _yours!"

"You're right. I don't have the right." Doumeki calmly admitted, while the fire in his eyes died to a vacant stoniness. "No matter what happens now, come tomorrow morning, the Doumeki waking up will remember nothing of it."

"You don't have the right," Watanuki quavered brokenly, "you don't have the right."

"But I still want to." Doumeki added softly, a glimmer of emotion in the depths of his gilded gaze. He took a step towards the trembling Onmyouji's burnished silhouette, but Watanuki beat him to the approach.

Sweeping up to the surprised Shinto priest, Watanuki crushed his breath and lips against Doumeki's weak and confused struggles, both rapidly melting into a thick, sliding warmth.

"Hah… hah… Watanuki… you don't have to… this is my decision." Doumeki protested faintly as he panted across Watanuki's dark scarlet cheek when they reluctantly came apart.

"Don't… go… I don't want your guilt or your pretences at nobility… just _stay_…" Watanuki breathed tremulously, his hands shaking as they pressed against the reassuring solidity of the Shinto priest's collarbones, icy palms riding above the deep swells of Doumeki's chest.

"You can't want that… you know what it will cost." Doumeki stated quietly, swallowing hard in a vain attempt to dislodge the painful knot in his throat.

"Then I'm damned," Watanuki declared with a hollow realization, the restless light in his eyes fracturing into wandering tears, "because I love you."

"Watanuki!" Doumeki growled as he seized the slender youth in a fierce hug. His lips buried into the soft perch of Watanuki's neck, the priest felt the taut shifts of the youth's agitation as vividly as the pounding of their bound hearts throbbing within their coupled frames. "You said it… why did you… you can't…" The young Shinto priest struggled with a furious agony while his strong arms forced their embrace even tighter, failing to distinguish the fiery pulses of pain searing into his senses from his abused stitched wounds.

"I had to." Watanuki whispered forlornly, his limp body caught fully in rough emotions tempered with an urgent yet gentle fall of kisses along the edge of his nape. "I don't know if I'll ever get another chance."

Doumeki stiffened, his narrowed glare gleaming resentfully at his own reflection in the windowpane. As he beheld his own ghostly image suspended in the empty night, he relished the burning lines of his wounds.

Watanuki laced his cold hands along the polished lines of the young Shinto priest's face, coaxing its weighted stubbornness from the sanctuary of his neck. When Doumeki raised sheepish eyes to Watanuki's wavering smile, the priest veiled his gaze beneath a pained frown.

"You're showing so many faces today- I can barely recognize you." Watanuki teased in a brittle voice, kneading his thumbs into the corners of Doumeki's mouth and raising them in a clumsy, uncooperative smile. "That looks better." Watanuki remarked, trying to keep the laughter from his voice. Doumeki managed a raised brow amidst the lingering traces of sorrow. The Shinto priest released his wrapping arms to arrest the Onmyouji's toying hands with his own. His eyes fixed yearningly upon Watanuki, who drew his gaze away self-consciously.

"What?" Watanuki mumbled bad-temperedly, though the deepening pink in his cheeks gave him away.

"_That_ Doumeki, the one who doesn't remember the past, teases you so often because he prefers to see you angry." Doumeki informed the young Onmyouji who twisted his lips sourly beneath a loathsome stare.

"Yooou… and your smoooooth lines," he drawled sarcastically.

Doumeki grunted in soft amusement, taking his time to kiss the disgruntled youth's captured fingertips.

"He likes it better because otherwise he gets flustered when you watch him with your tenderness." Doumeki confessed glancing at Watanuki's dazed expression. "You have an unforgivably honest beauty."

"Idiot." Watanuki mumbled. "Coming from you, it doesn't feel like a compliment."

"Really?" Doumeki blinked in mild surprise, a thoughtful frown wrinkling his brows. "Then I'll start over. You're very-"

"Aaah! It's ok!" Watanuki interrupted, freeing his hand to rest his fingers over the priest's pale lips. "I believe you."

"Are you blushing?" Doumeki asked, his voice muffled by the barring digits, though the edges of his grin peeked out from behind them.

Watanuki's looked as if he was about to unleash a wrathful retort, but he stopped, mouth agape with the unreleased bellow. "Ah-" he uttered ineffectually, his distant gaze falling as his parted lips met weakly.

"I said I'll make you mine, but I won't do anything that-" Doumeki tried to reassure, his gilded gaze stained with dark struggle, but Watanuki intercepted him again.

"No, if I'm going to be yours, I…" Watanuki paused, his cheeks flaming with embarrassment and a secretly endured swoon, "… I want to do it properly." The Onmyouji took a deep steadying breath, his heart beating painfully in his chest.

"… Very well-" Doumeki relented, a solemn expression on his face.

"You arrogant-" Watanuki cut in irritably his blush darkening.

"-but I'll make you mine in my own way." Doumeki finished, his face relaxing into a warm smile.

"In your own- what do you mean by that?" Watanuki demanded, sensing that the Shinto priest had reached some satisfactory decision. "You're going to do something stupid and reckless, aren't you?"

"I'm not you." Doumeki rebutted calmly as he slowly sank to the floor on his knees.

"Dou- Doumeki!" Watanuki gasped, his limbs tensing pre-emptively as the kneeling priest touched the narrow flap of fabric above the zipper of his light green cargo pants. Doumeki glanced up at the apprehension in Watanuki's face and offered him an encouraging grin.

"I've never done this before, but I know that we can't do anything if you're not hard," he pointed out bluntly.

"H-hard? Wai- wait! I'm the one… 'attacking'?" Watanuki wanted to confirm, panic widening threateningly in his lavender eyes.

"Of course," Doumeki answered matter-of-factly. "Even with your slender frame, you're still a man, and a man has to take responsibility when he deflowers a virgin bud. You'll have to take care of me, making you mine."

Watanuki blanched, his voice fighting to keep calm as he made his weakened counter. "Urgh! People with your kind of face don't say things like that… you sound like some pervert in a restroom stall! I don't think this is a good idea. Do you seriously want me to… to… in your… er… hii-urgh!"

Doumeki watched Watanuki's contorted surprise with a serene impassiveness though his fingers continued to finger the outline of Watanuki's bound manhood. "Watanuki… I might punch you when I wake up tomorrow, but even _that _Doumeki can't deny that he's become yours when he finds the evidence in his body."

"Punch me? This is _your_ freakin' idea! Hn!" Watanuki raged, flinching abruptly when the tracing fingers brushed a sensitive spot.

Doumeki didn't respond, choosing instead to reach for the zipper with his fingertips and draw it down in a grating noise that seemed unnaturally loud in the tense quiet of the night. When the nickel tab rested at its end, Doumeki's fingers fell away and gold eyes drifted up towards Watanuki's anxious scrutiny.

No words came between them- there were none. Watanuki's shoulders lowered in a soft sigh, the nervous glimmer of his eyes rippling with an enchanted wonderment. Doumeki smiled, slowly, carefully. Coursing his hands over the faintly trembling torso, his thumbs hooked the hem of Watanuki's cotton singlet as his palms soothed over the pliant curves beneath.

Watanuki's breaths came short and heavy, his abdomen flinching as his navel was edged in kisses with sudden inexplicableness. Whether it was from the anticipation of what was to come, or from the gentle boldness that explored the hitherto unknown frontiers of his body's latent eroticism, Watanuki's cheeks flushed with urgent embarrassment as he felt the swell of his rousing pleasure growing right beneath Doumeki's chest. The slightest shift of the young Shinto priest's body could rub against it, giving Watanuki away. Even as the Onmyouji fretted over the sweet predicament, Doumeki jarred his thoughts with the wet, tracing tease of the young priest's tongue.

"D- Doumeki!" Watanuki protested, but the Shinto priest continued unperturbed, audaciously tracking tasting kisses up against the Onmyouji's sensitive sides. The sharp shock twisted into his flustered agitation, sparking into a kind of agonizing pleasure. In his confusion, he thrust his hips forward with a distressed jerk, pressing his hardening arousal against the firm resistance and gratifying texture of Doumeki's bandaged chest. The reflexive reaction awoke a thrill of pleasure and humiliation within the Onmyouji's helpless body.

"Hn-" Doumeki grunted into Watanuki's tortured side. He lowered a hand to nestle between his chest and the straining manhood, eliciting a soft yelp from the Onmyouji.

"S-Stop it! Idiot! Stupid!" Watanuki blustered in conflicted panic, his outburst punctuated with a sharp shivering breath as Doumeki's fingers tucked themselves into the buttoned flap of his boxer briefs, grazing the throbbing heat within.

"We have to get yours out if we're to do this." Doumeki explained calmly while his fingers stroked the stiff member in the limited arcs the narrow gap permitted him. He gazed up at a crimson-cheeked Watanuki with a look of mentoring patience. "Understand?"

"I know what we have to do!" Watanuki snapped in a flash of indignant rage, then bit his lower lip as he truly registered what he had just announced.

"Good. I'm a bit lost," Doumeki admitted freely, though his wedged fingers continued to run restlessly back and forth, "I'm just a beginner at this."

"I've never done this before either!" Watanuki rapped back with a masking anger, which crumbled before the agitation of those relentless strokes. "Hn! Dou-Doumeki… mhn… this is… still too strange…"

"This doesn't feel good?" Doumeki enquired in a vexing innocence that Watanuki glowered over.

"I-It doesn't!" Watanuki hotly refuted, swiftly regretting when Doumeki blinked thoughtfully before proceeding to undo the final button to the Onmyouji's chastity. "What are you doing?" Watanuki protested in a tight whisper as he tried to squirm away.

"It might feel better if I use my mouth-" Doumeki considered aloud while the fabric stretched away from his firm grip. He nonchalantly ignored Watanuki's awkward attempt at escape as he worked at undoing the button.

"Doumeki!" The young Onmyouji hissed in furious embarrassment, an involuntary whimper stifling his outrage when the button slipped open. Heavy with its thickened excitement, Watanuki's manhood sprung forth like a brandished cudgel, shuddering in anticipation.

"It's big, and it's not even fully-" Doumeki began then stopped abruptly when he noticed the wounded expression on Watanuki's face. "What's wrong?"

"Is this how you want to start this?" Watanuki demanded coldly.

"… I don't think there's another way-" Doumeki replied uncertainly, faltering as he watched the Onmyouji's gaze harden.

"Fine. Fine! We just need to do the deed, that's the way you want it right? So, our clothes are the main issue then. We just need to take them off, right? So let's do that then, and get right to it!" Watanuki barked in barely restrained anger.

"Watanuki-" Doumeki started to pacify but he was silenced by a sharp glare.

"We don't have time, right? You want to hurry and make me yours, right?" Watanuki growled challengingly. Doumeki sighed softly.

"Alright." He agreed dully, rising up slowly as his fingers worked on unhooking the fastening of his pants. Watanuki's alarmed cry interrupted him.

"Wait- you're bleeding!" Watanuki exclaimed while he stepped closer to examine the bloodstained bandages, grimacing with an uncomfortable reminder in the clumsy sway of his engorged manhood.

"A bit." Doumeki admitted. "It's fine though."

Watanuki studied him with a rare quiet exasperation. "Don't push yourself like this. Even rushing to do this… I thought for a moment you only cared for-" Watanuki shook his head. "Doumeki, you're overcompensating."

Doumeki was silent for a helpless moment, the strong lines of his face stiffening stoically. Watanuki touched a taut cheek, comforting the mask of strength.

"I want to take care of you." Doumeki whispered simply, gilded gaze glowing softly. "My choices… always seem to involve hurting someone."

Watanuki understood, of course he did. It was the story of his life too. He could love or protect, but never both.

"I promised you I'd be yours in this life, and I'll keep that promise. It doesn't matter whether you remember me tomorrow or not. I'll stick by your side no matter how much you try to shake me off." Watanuki assured with a lightly teasing smile.

"I can't take you without taking the responsibility for it." Doumeki stated flatly. Watanuki sighed.

"And so you come up with this half-baked plan of having me take you, and then somehow that clueless Doumeki will simply submit to me?" Watanuki questioned with a roll of his eyes.

"I guess that can't literally happen." Doumeki conceded with the faintest hint of a smile. "But it doesn't change the fact that I want to join with you."

"Pervert." Watanuki accused but his manner had grown more relaxed and he shyly ran his hands down to the edge of Doumeki's pants. "Are you sure you want to do this? We don't… have to go the whole way… and you're injured."

"So be gentle with me." Doumeki supplied, grinning as Watanuki made a face before those violet eyes cleared with a fragile transparency.

"We can't… kiss first?" The Onmyouji asked timidly.

Doumeki evaded Watanuki's coy sidelong glance, a troubled frown framing his averted gaze. When he turned back and noticed Watanuki's uneasy look, he hastily cradled that slender face in his grasp, a solemn light in his eyes. "I _want_ to kiss you, to tell you that I- have these feelings for you, but it's unfair isn't it, for me to say that tonight when you'll have to suffer the string of cold tomorrows with someone who doesn't remember."

"Then-" Watanuki paused, his cheeks flaming as he looked down, only to see his own stirring manhood. He hastily squeezed his eyes shut. "Then you should kiss me enough to last that string of tomorrows!" He rushed the words out like ripping off a band-aid, and he shivered in tight embarrassment in their wake.

Golden eyes widened briefly, and then fell into an unguarded tenderness.

"You… you're really… so silly."

"What?" Watanuki started to rage, but he met Doumeki's gaze and slid his own demurely away. He gasped when the shocking warmth of Doumeki's grasp closed firmly over his shaft, yet his complaint was sealed away in an even deeper flood of ambushing fervour.

At first, it seemed as if the night had closed in on him, palpable velvet touched with a subdued heat met along his forehead down to the bridge of his nose and beyond… A torrid slipperiness invaded his gaping mouth. Watanuki's immediate reaction was to repulse it with his tongue with a displeased whine, only to have Doumeki's slide slyly against the underside of it before darting out.

"Mm-wha-hah-!" Watanuki tried ineffectually, but Doumeki was back in again, this time weighing his tongue over the Onmyouji's, wrestling it down while Watanuki fought back in annoyance. Their slick tongues slipped clumsily against each other, though the scant friction teased the sensitive organ enough to distract the finicky Onmyouji from the damp tracks of their mingled saliva, stealing down the corners of his mouth.

Just as Watanuki was beginning to enjoy the wisps of dreamy pleasure threading through his suspended focus, a sharp thrill lanced into his consciousness- Doumeki finishing a smooth stroke along his manhood.

"Mmmn! Ah-! Hah-! Nn-!" Watanuki moaned between hard-fought seconds of freedom. Doumeki wouldn't allow him to escape. Again those burning lips joined with his own, guiding them apart as that tongue bullied his own in frustrating harassment. All the while, Doumeki continued his main assault on Watanuki's weeping core in bold, broad strokes.

"Nnnn! Munhaah! Haa- haa- Wait! Can't- can't go on much longer like this!" Watanuki warned, violet eyes moist and misted with drowning control. The telltale pressure gathering through to the very base of his manhood had crept upon him with almost belated warning.

"Mmmn." Doumeki acknowledged, absentmindedly licking his reddened lips while his pumping fist eased to a reluctant stop. The Shinto priest seemed lost in thought as Watanuki struggled to catch his breath and regain some composure. At last, the Shinto priest's gaze returned its attention to the panting youth before him. "Can't let this end yet."

"We should… haa… take our clothes… off first," Watanuki suggested almost pleadingly, "I need a few seconds." The last few words were uttered in a bare whisper, and the Onmyouji snuck a nervous peek at the priest's impassive expression. "Sorry. I can do this. I just need a bit more-"

"Hm? Oh. No. It's fine. You were very alluring." Doumeki assured mildly. Watanuki was caught between making a face and hiding it, but the blank look on Doumeki caught his immediate attention.

"What's wrong?" Watanuki asked softly, his hands straying once again to the bloodied bandages that bothered him. "You're still recovering, so just this once, I wouldn't mind s- ser- servicing you…"

Doumeki blinked then rested a knuckle against his nether lip in frowning contemplation. "I'm just not sure how we go on from here. Is there some set sequence, or any procedural steps we have to follow?"

Watanuki looked as if he would object to being so forthrightly questioned, but he paused and lowered his gaze as he mumbled indistinctly. "Mn… I'll, er, guide, guid'yerthruid..." Clearing his throat, he repeated himself in a louder, almost challenging tone. "Guide you through it; I'll… yeah."

Doumeki nodded agreeably, albeit with the same impassive expression that usually got on Watanuki's nerves. In this instance, Watanuki was thankful for it. Watching Doumeki steadily undoing his pants sent a guilty thrill running through his body. When the priest let the wrinkled fabric fall and finished kicking them aside, he reached for the waistband of his boxers, provoking a sharp gasp from Watanuki, who immediately turned around, inadvertently revealing his crimson nape and reddened ears to the Shinto priest.

Doumeki grinned but for the first time tonight, allowed the opportunity to tease the Onmyouji slip since there was something much more entertaining for him to enjoy. Perhaps because Watanuki was all too conscious of how obscene it was for him to be fully clothed with his manhood swinging brazenly out for all to see, the Onmyouji set about disrobing himself without the slightest complaint. First, the singlet was peeled up and hoisted off overhead. Then the cargo pants, along with the boxer pants, were carefully lowered leaving an almost adorable neat pile.

The Shinto priest was wise enough to maintain a straight face when Watanuki turned timidly to face him. It wasn't the first time they had seen each other naked, in their past life they had shared a bath on several occasions, some of which he had spent secretly admiring the milky suppleness. It _was _the first time they stood before each other bereft of any disguises, their intentions bared blatantly between them.

Doumeki was just wondering if he could get away with complimenting the slender beauty without incurring noisy delays, when Watanuki broke the expectant silence.

"I've never done this before, and I've only had it described to me." Watanuki cautioned, cheek taut and crimson.

Doumeki merely nodded. He'd heard that in many families parents often shared advice on healthy sexual habits with their offspring, and he didn't want to risk evoking painful memories.

"I heard it hurts, so… just tell me if I'm hurting you." Watanuki looked up, his brows creased fretfully. "If we need to stop you have to say something. It's not worth it if you're in pain."

"A little pain is endurable, but I want to feel good too, so don't worry." Doumeki soothed, crossing the short distance between them, not minding the hard warmth of Watanuki's hefty length resting against the top edge of his thigh. He let Watanuki's gaze escape shyly over his shoulder, but he froze when he caught a tear slip down a shaded cheek.

"I'm not scared!" Watanuki clarified sharply, the anger framing his brows unable to touch the desperation in his violet eyes. "But… we've been through so much haven't we? We really have… haven't we?"

"We have." Doumeki answered quietly.

"Shi…zuka…" Watanuki managed tremulously.

"I'm here." Doumeki softly acknowledged.

"Shizuka…" Watanuki whispered again as he slowly pressed against Doumeki's comforting solidity.

"Yes." Doumeki responded with a bracing calm.

"Is it… okay for me to be this happy?" Watanuki asked in a muffled sob.

Doumeki closed his eyes briefly, a steady mountain wrapped in the turbulent mists of emotion. "Each tear you swallow before me, touches my soul with the gravest stain. Only your happiness redeems me."

"Where has the priest gone, and why does a poet now wear his guise?" Watanuki countered softly, the heat of his presence burning along Doumeki's body.

"A poet is a man born by the blossoming amaranth, but no guise does he wear over his stricken heart. Where love abides, his heart yearns to reside." Doumeki sang back in a youthful voice touched with ancient tones from a life long past. Like an ancient _Koto _strummed by tender fingers.

"You're tempting me to ruin the moment," Watanuki warned, though he grasped Doumeki's hardened body with growing neediness.

Doumeki only grinned and laid kiss upon insatiable kiss along the slighter youth's unguarded nape.

"Hn-! Idiot…" Watanuki complained but in the next moment, clumsy moist slurping sounds cut into the heavy rhythm of their breaths.

Doumeki jerked up in surprise, but Watanuki's barked command stopped him from turning to look for the source of the suggestive sounds. "Don't look! It's embarrassing… I'm just wetting my fingers for- gaaah! You'll find out soon enough!"

Doumeki pondered this for a moment, before he ventured boldly with a question.

"Your fingers have to be wet?"

"…yeah…"

"It has to be saliva?"

"Well we don't have anything else to use as lub- er… to- to-"

"Does it have to be _your_ saliva?"

"Huh?"

Doumeki drew back and faced a furiously blushing Watanuki with a passive stubbornness. "If your fingers need to be wet, I can wet them for you."

"That's-" Watanuki began with what at first appeared to be an agitated retort, but which gradually deflated into weak acceptance. "Do… what you like."

"I intend to." Doumeki informed the Onmyouji, cradling the fingers of the scowling practitioner in his grasp. With careful delicacy, he brought the pale digits to his lips…

"Hn-!" Watanuki gasped as a swift, moist swipe filled his consciousness for an uncomfortable moment. Coyly hidden lavender rose again to the careful slide of dull pink tracing the edges of his fingertips. Pleasure, mild yet tickling suffused his drunken senses. Noisy slurps that he had been so abashed to hear when they had come from his own mouth, now stoked his passion with inexplicable agony.

Doumeki glanced at Watanuki's half-lidded unguarded gaze and smirked, swirling his tongue against the edge of the twitching digits.

"Sl-slobbering so shamelessly- mnhn!" Watanuki rebuked softly though he couldn't contain his whimpering. "I'll have you begging for mercy later!" The Onmyouji snapped in misdirected annoyance. Why did it feel so good?

Doumeki laughed with his eyes alone, his mouth preoccupied with the task of enveloping the slick fingers, drenching them even further in his whetted appetite.

"Don't… hnn… suck so hard… Idiot! You're keeping me on edge!" Watanuki scolded, pulling his fingers out suddenly. His breath hitched as he watched Doumeki lick his nether lip a look of discontentment on the priest's face. "A- are you… clean? Down there… if you need time-"

"I'm very thorough when it comes to personal hygiene; asking me that now would be a little too late anyway, wouldn't it?" Doumeki answered distractedly, his gaze still fixed upon the glistening coat of Watanuki's moistened fingers.

Watanuki cleared his throat impatiently, though he failed to draw Doumeki's attention to his face. "I don't want to have to put your butt in my face, so we'll do this facing each other…"

That got Doumeki's attention.

"Hmn? Is that possible? Ah, I see- if I ride on you-" he reasoned agreeably while Watanuki turned a dark scarlet.

"Not that! Just… just the loosening…" Watanuki mumbled shyly. Seeing that Doumeki was about to ask more questions he closed the meagre distance between them in an awkward hug, gasping softly as their stiff members became wedged between their heated bodies. "Don't talk; don't even look at me. It's for both of our sakes," he ordered, his head resting above Doumeki's left shoulder.

"Mn." Doumeki's voice boomed next to his ear. This close, Watanuki could feel the vibrations of the simple sound through the priest's body. Even that stimulation made his manhood throb painfully.

"I'm going to… put my finger in." Watanuki announced embarrassedly. Were he not so nervous he would have smiled when Doumeki nodded with uncharacteristic obedience. Slowly, he traced his dry little finger against the line of Doumeki's back, appreciating the polished beauty of a well-defined back. When the priest's body quivered suddenly, he paused.

"It tickles?" Watanuki asked, and promptly felt Doumeki's responding nod brushing against his cheek. "Sorry." Taking a deep breath and shutting his eyes, he slid the side of his little finger shallowly between the priest's firm butt cheeks. Instinctively, they grew taut, clamping the foreign presence before it could trespass any further. Watanuki didn't say anything. This wasn't a matter he wished to force. If Doumeki wanted to trust him, he would.

Gradually, the pressure around Watanuki's fingers relented, and Watanuki surprised himself when he heaved a sigh of relief. He hadn't realized he had been worried. Setting aside the uncomfortable revelation, he slid his wet ring finger between the peaks as well, nudging in his little finger in the process. Conscious of how uncomfortable Doumeki probably was, he proceeded at a slow but steady pace, not wishing to provoke any surprise or to prolong any discomfort.

As his fingers inched deeper into the unknown territory, Watanuki hesitantly stroked the back of Doumeki's head in an uncertain gesture of encouragement. Both of them flinched when Watanuki's questing fingertips touched the virgin bud hidden within.

"Doumeki-" Watanuki began timidly, but Doumeki was already shaking his head.

"I trust you," he added simply, forgetting his earlier promise to maintain his silence.

With a doubtful breath, Watanuki pressed the touch of his ring finger against the guarding sphincter. It resisted, as Watanuki knew it would. It had nothing to do with what Doumeki consciously believed- Watanuki knew that he had to convince the priest's very subconscious.

Forgetting his compromising actions as he focused on Doumeki's reactions, Watanuki gently massaged the tight bud, the slippery edge of his finger coaxing the entrance in an unhurried but persistent circular pressure. Watanuki heard Doumeki take a sharp breath, but since the priest's body remained relatively relaxed, the Onmyouji continued with his preparations.

"Is it too uncomfortable?" Watanuki wanted to confirm.

"It's… strange," Doumeki replied shortly.

"Sorry. Just a bit more," Watanuki promised, his free hand patting the head of an amused Doumeki. The only thing that tempered Watanuki's explosive reactions was the distraction by the Onmyouji's meticulous nature.

Doumeki's silent laughter allowed part of his tension to escape, his body's grip abruptly relaxing. Watanuki gasped in soft surprise as the barrier yielded before his fingertip then hissed as a burning heat swallowed his finger.

Doumeki's stoic grunt was drowned out by Watanuki's shocked exclamation.

"It's hot! Are you having a fever?" Watanuki demanded.

"It's complicated." Doumeki answered simply. Right at this point, the Shinto priest could think of several other reasons for his body's temperature.

"Does it hurt?" Watanuki asked more gently.

"It's fine," Doumeki reassured, "continue."

"Tell me if it hurts," Watanuki insisted as he slowly pressed his finger deeper into the constricted passage. "Try to relax, if you can," he added, "but you can tell me to stop and wait for a bit. It's alright, we're not in that much of a hurry." He felt Doumeki nod, but the priest remained silent. Taking it as silent permission, Watanuki delved even deeper, sheathing his ring finger in up to its knuckle.

Even as he concentrated on Doumeki, Watanuki couldn't help the self-conscious blush as the tender inner walls pulsed restlessly against his invading finger. He was violating the most vulnerable secret of a man, and the sudden power he held over such a powerful and usually dominant figure like Doumeki, was as exhilarating as it was frightening. Slowly, he crooked his finger, as if he beckoned.

"Nn!" Doumeki grunted softly, keenly feeling the searing alien presence searching within him.

"Does it hurt?" Watanuki quickly asked, privately alarmed at the excitement he felt along with the concern.

Doumeki shook his head, but the torturously slow inner tickling traced lines of fire in his senses.

"Really?" Watanuki pursued, his conscience locked in bitter struggle with the undeniable expectation beating in his chest.

"I can- hn!" Doumeki's calm reply broke off as another heated stab widened the straining sphincter, opening yet another burning path in him.

"Doumeki… don't restrain yourself… if it hurts…" Watanuki advised with difficulty.

Doumeki only blinked away the dampness in the corners of his eyes, and drew a steadying breath. "I'm fine," he repeated, but his chest trembled as he felt Watanuki's fingers writhing in an undulating motion. It was indescribable agony without true pain; inexplicable anxiety bereft of any fulfilment.

Watanuki wrapped his free hand against Doumeki's tensed nape, his lips grazing the tip of Doumeki's ear. Did he long to give Doumeki pleasure or suffering? He didn't know it himself. Yet no matter how contradictory his urges were, they crashed impotently against his unassailable resolve to cause no harm to the warrior. The privilege he now held might be his to enjoy, but it was certainly not his to abuse. Doumeki had submitted himself to his care, and Watanuki had a duty to honour that.

Watanuki inched his fingers deeper at a cautious pace, the simultaneous arcs of their motion carefully testing the readiness of the fragile inner walls. Doumeki's laboured breaths weighed heavily on his mind- Doumeki was liable to hide his true condition.

"How are you doing?" Watanuki asked concernedly.

"Nh! I… don't know," Doumeki answered honestly.

Watanuki frowned. "Should I take my fingers out?"

"No! No… nh!" If their simple movement could batter his endurance so cruelly, Doumeki didn't want to imagine what it would feel like to have those deeply buried fingers drag themselves out.

"Then… another finger?" Watanuki offered with barely disguised eagerness.

"What?" Doumeki mumbled weakly, though he had heard the question.

"You haven't started feeling good yet, so… maybe… the fingers aren't enough?" Watanuki concluded, his index finger resting against the swollen puckered bud. "What… do you think?"

Doumeki wavered between the conflicting sensations of helplessness and enticement, but he finally nodded, desperate to relieve the tantalizing promise that hovered just beyond the entrance to his inner chaos.

"Nnnh! Ah-!"

Beads of sweat trickled across Doumeki's involuntary grimace, but Watanuki's newly added finger glided with relative ease into the Shinto priest. To Doumeki however, it seemed as if a line of solid flame had driven itself into his defenceless core.

Watanuki's dismay was clear in his hurried explanation. "Sorry! I didn't mean to- so quickly- it just-"

"It's… ok…" Doumeki simply forgave, his arms tight around Watanuki's guiltily shrinking frame.

Chewing his lower lip penitently, Watanuki tried to limit his fingers to gentle stroking motions. With so many fingers wedged deep within, however, even the slightest movement twisted the form of the inner walls, heavily stimulating the delicate flesh.

"Haa-! Nh! Hanh!"

"I'll be gentle." Watanuki whispered needlessly. Doumeki could keenly appreciate the renewed caution that restrained the movements within him. Amidst the deep soreness, the probing digits pressed a tenuous pleasure that writhed elusively within him.

"Haah-hnh! Wata-ah! Tch! Not… so slow…" Doumeki softly urged in a deep murmur.

"Eh? Don't be so reckless!" Watanuki refused, his fingers pausing in his alarm.

"I want something stronger… this feeling is too… aggravating…" the priest tried to explain, unable to help the unhappy shift of his waist as his body tried to simulate the movements Watanuki had provided only moments before.

"D-Doumeki!" Watanuki protested in a scandalised tone. More in an attempt to stop Doumeki's suggestive movements than anything else, Watanuki began moving his fingers again. They moved slowly at first, though their strokes grew wider, stretching the slick passage more brazenly. As Doumeki's laboured breaths sweetened with restless moans, heating the air next to the Onmyouji's ear, the fingers slipped more urgently against each other, wriggling carelessly as the squelching sounds competed loudly with the priest's tormented gasps.

"Ah! Mnhaah! Ah-huunh! N-!" Doumeki's last exclamation ended voicelessly as his golden eyes widened in surprise.

"Sorry!" Watanuki instantly apologised, his fingers frozen in place, fear thundering in his chest as the hoarse exhalation died against his earlobe.

"…" Doumeki only breathed, the sudden dizzying wave of unexpected pleasure receding into a shaken awe.

"I'll take my fingers out-" Watanuki declared but Doumeki only clutched Watanuki tighter in his embrace.

"It felt good- _very _good, for one moment." Doumeki assured the hesitant Onmyouji.

"Eh?"

"Some…where, you touched somewhere you hadn't before." Doumeki tried to explain. "It felt more real… less vague."

"Haaah?" Watanuki responded in complete bafflement.

"Do it again," Doumeki ordered.

"Huh? But I don't know where I-"

"Doesn't matter," the Shinto priest insisted, "just move your fingers like you did before and you'll get it eventually."

"That's so reckless! That place is really tender! Are you _trying _to get injured there?" Yet despite Watanuki's warnings, the Onmyouji's fingers repeated their rapid oscillations.

"Mhn! Ahah! Ngh-kh! Haa-ah! Uhn! AH! Teh- haah- the… there… right there…" Doumeki informed Watanuki tremulously, his body quivering in the shocks of pleasure jolting within him.

"Dou…Doumeki… you're… this is…" Watanuki stuttered, a full blush colouring his cheeks while his fingers continued to pursue the reactions that made his own manhood jerk painfully.

"Nhmn! Kah! Not- not so- hah! Mn! I can't-!" Doumeki gasped, his iconic stony expression marred by budding tears and twisted self-control. This was an experience no man could ever expect for the first time, to be touched in such a vulnerable place and be driven to such foreign and yet undeniable pleasure. As a virgin, uninitiated into the bolder territories of intimacy, Doumeki was helpless before the sudden exotic assault, leaving his battered consciousness to plead desperately for some respite in the face of such utter defeat. "Wata-mhn-hn-! Watanuki… wait… please…"

That got Watanuki's attention. The Onmyouji could hardly remember a time past or present when the naturally arrogant man had ever pleaded with him for anything. "Sorry," he began gently as his embedded fingers slowed and his free hand soothed the shaking priest's sweat-damp body, "but it didn't hurt?"

Watanuki relaxed when he felt Doumeki shake his head.

"It was intense," the priest freely admitted, "a little frightening."

Watanuki didn't even smile. Instead, he kissed the strong but clammy nape and whispered a soft apology. "I got a bit caught up in the moment," he added meekly.

"It's fine," Doumeki accepted easily, "it is to be expected." He half hoped that the Onmyouji would take the bait and rage at his arrogant tone, but he was disappointed.

"How's your injury?" Watanuki enquired seriously.

"I can honestly say I've forgotten all about it for the past few minutes." Doumeki promptly replied, an amused snort meeting his remark.

"Now's not the time to act tough though," Watanuki stubbornly pointed out though he ended with another kiss against Doumeki's nape.

"Mhn-hn! Hah… I really… have my attention somewhere else… right now…" Doumeki sighed, shuddering as the Onmyouji's fingers raked steadily across his pleasure points.

"Does it really feel good?" Watanuki wanted to know.

Doumeki nodded, his cheek grazing against Watanuki's. "Put yours in soon… hah…"

"P-put my…" Watanuki swallowed hard then yelped as a firm grasp closed around his shaft.

"This has been dripping since we've started, right?" Doumeki pointed out. Thanks to that, the top of his thigh felt sticky, not that the priest minded very much.

"That's the same for you too, right!" Watanuki retorted hotly, grabbing the priest's moist and throbbing member. Doumeki's appreciative exhalation sent a deep current of pressure running straight down to Watanuki's core.

"That's why I asked you to get to it," Doumeki stated matter-of-factly, carefully stroking Watanuki's engorged manhood.

"Nhhh! Mhn!" Stars danced in Watanuki's vision as he choked back the startled moans. All throughout his preparation of Doumeki, he had been left unattended to, though his excitement hadn't been dimmed in the slightest by this. Instead, the priest's buckling will beneath his ministrations had only brought Watanuki closer to the edge. As the white-hot pleasure engulfed his consciousness, he felt a slab of solid strength supporting his swaying body and its buckling knees.

"Careful," was all Doumeki said, but in the warm haze of embarrassment that Watanuki recovered in, it was just the right thing to say. With the small swell of courage that gleamed within him, he massaged the priest's delicate frenulum, while his trapped fingers traced Doumeki's inner walls with restored vigour.

"Haah!" Doumeki managed to gasp as a powerful convulsion nearly threw the Onmyouji off balance. When Watanuki's fingers would not relent, he grit his teeth, his free arm crushing Watanuki against him. The hand holding Watanuki's member remained gentle however, the tip of the priest's thumb merely outlining the bottom edge of the flared head.

Watanuki soothed a kiss against the priest's tensed shoulders. "You could… finish off once like this… It feels good doesn't it?" His fingers curled more aggressively as he made his offer.

"AH-hah! NNNH!" Doumeki cried out in tortured delight. "Nnnh! Not… without- HAH! Not without you!" Watanuki could hear the plea in Doumeki's strident refusal.

"Well, this might be difficult for someone like you to understand but, you can't always have your way," Watanuki reasoned with deliberate mildness as his other hand began to pump Doumeki's core roughly.

"HN! AH-haaa-hn! AH!" The sudden force was exquisite punishment to Doumeki, brutally disregarding his will and wholly satisfying to the silent roar that thundered in the wake of his crumbling self-restraint. Within him, the presence of Watanuki's fingers reasserted themselves by battering every assailable weakness in the sole indefensible part of himself. "Oou- HAH! Ouu-mnn-mmn- NAH! H-hn-hah!"

Watanuki's stomach tensed as he felt Doumeki's grip on his manhood shift, and he braced himself for the priest's retaliation. Instead, those strong fingers only softly caressed the moist dome of the Onmyouji's manhood, a tingling warmth flowing into Watanuki where the fingertips brushed. Only the involuntary spasms of that touch gave any indication to how much it cost the priest to retain such a measure of composure.

Watanuki spared Doumeki no quarter. His pumping fist twisted as it rose over the weeping head, further stimulating the sensitive glans, while his burrowing fingers dug mercilessly at the now familiar location of the spot that drove the priest to sheer ecstasy.

Doumeki was completely at the Onmyouji's mercy. No matter how he twisted, he only found himself jerking to the whims of the puppet master's masterful fingers. "AH! Wata- HAH! Ahn-ah-hn! Watanu- Mmn- Oou- HAH!"

"Don't keep making me repeat myself," Watanuki reproached lightly. "I said it, right? I want you to finish off once first."

"Not… haa… with you? I…" Doumeki started to ask in a strained voice, sweat pouring freely from his brow and down his back. "HA-NH! OUU-HN!" Doumeki's voice rose abruptly in sweet torment as Watanuki redoubled the efforts of his stoking fingers.

"What did I just say? I hate having to repeat myself," Watanuki chided in mock disappointment.

Yet Watanuki's teasing was lost on the priest. He had fought valiantly, but his virgin body could simply not hold on to his sanity before such savage routing of his senses.

"HAA! AHH! Ou-mn! Nn! Nn! Ouu- houuu- nn- mhn! AH!" Doumeki's moans tumbled plaintively from his lips, though the priest wasn't even aware he made them. Watanuki grimly supported Doumeki's throes, a chagrined frown marring his resolve.

"Idiot! What are you fighting this for?" Watanuki demanded of an unheeding Doumeki. "This way you'll end up getting hurt!" Drawing his head back, Watanuki gazed fretfully into Doumeki's passion-worn face and ducked beneath the quivering chin to kiss the swell of the priest's throat.

"Stupid," he whispered into the private hollow, "I just want to make sure you feel good at least once." As he pressed another kiss against the rolling flesh, he clenched his pumping fist hard around the shaft of Doumeki's manhood. At the same time, Watanuki's embedded fingers twisted deep into the potent spot that Doumeki was utterly powerless against.

"HANNGH!" Doumeki arched back, body stiff as the binding currents within him flared explosively at once. Watanuki flinched as Doumeki's essence slashed furiously across his chest and stomach. Volley after volley struck him with such ferocity that for a brief awed instant, he felt a little chastened for having robbed Doumeki of his wishes. The thought evaporated in the forceful reminder of Doumeki's manhood that still throbbed powerfully in his fist.

Watanuki snuck a peek at Doumeki, half-expecting to find a demanding frown. He met a half-dazed golden gaze that was just peering at him with a quiet disbelief… and perhaps just the tiniest hint of shyness. Watanuki looked away sheepishly, gently kneading the last few drops of manly effusions from the priest's shaft. He heard the sharp, steadying gasp of breath and without thinking, twitched his fingers that were still inside of Doumeki.

"Hn!" Doumeki groaned softly, a surge of vigour swelling against Watanuki's massaging fist.

"Sorry," Watanuki muttered hastily, far more self-conscious now that Doumeki wasn't swooning with naked need.

"I… wanted to be there with you." Doumeki stated pointedly.

"We can try that later," Watanuki dismissed with a queasy grimace as he surveyed the priest's impromptu artwork on his body. It looked like really bad icing on a cake for a bachelorette party. Hands that had held his shoulders for support just moments ago now hauled him before Doumeki's interrogating gaze.

"Why did you do it?" Doumeki's impassive gaze both watchful and cold. The Onmyouji's violet eyes flashed briefly with dismay, and he slowly shook his head.

"I just… wanted to be sure you felt good." Watanuki replied truthfully.

"And you think I would not have felt good with you?" Doumeki asked stonily. Awkwardly, Watanuki tried to rub the back of his head but realized he had no hands free.

"I've heard that for your first time… people rarely finish off… It hurts too much…" he explained reluctantly. "F-first timers… the ones er… 'attacking'… can be a little… that is… a bit overeager…"

Doumeki considered this piece of information soberly, and peered down at the swollen member in his grasp. Watanuki blushed and looked away.

"Yours is still hard too!" he retorted defensively, though he sucked in a weak gasp as Doumeki's fingers gently stroked over the flared head of the Onmyouji's engorged manhood.

"We'll do it properly this time?" Doumeki demanded as Watanuki squeezed his eyes shut. The priest's fingers slid lovingly over the thick head of his manhood, excruciatingly slow but waking fire wherever they flowed.

"Hn! A-are you sure?" Watanuki asked doubtfully, trembling with the effort.

Doumeki smiled. "I'm sure."

Watanuki watched him with a quiet and only slightly uncertain smile of his own. Their brief moment was marred by the soft squelch of his fingers leaving the depths of the Shinto priest.

"Hn!" Doumeki grunted softly, but his eyes didn't lose their focus on the Onmyouji's nervous expression. With a brief nod to the slighter youth, he guided Watanuki to the bed, his hands roaming over his companion's abdomen possessively. Watanuki felt paralyzed by their touch, lost in the sensations that swelled and pulsed within him. So gradual that it seemed imperceptible, Watanuki felt himself falling back against the sheets, Doumeki following closely over him. Feeling the priest's golden gaze on him, he stared up at them noting the faint puzzlement there.

"What?" Watanuki demanded.

Doumeki merely shrugged. If Watanuki hadn't noticed how obedient he was being, he wasn't about to break the spell. Instead, he gently pulled Watanuki's wrists out of the way while he licked the cloudy patterns off of the Onmyouji's chest.

"Ah! Wait, that's dirty! Ah-haha! S-stop! Tic-ticklish! That's ticklish!" Watanuki struggled in vain as Doumeki's deceptively careful hold held his wrists down firmly. Licking his lips thoughtfully, the Shinto priest calmly continued his grooming of the squirming youth beneath him.

Watanuki yelped when Doumeki tracked a wet line across his left nipple, and he felt it hardening embarrassingly. Watanuki didn't need to hear the snort of soft amusement to know what the priest thought of that.

"You- hnn!"

Any defensive retort Watanuki might have launched was lost in a sharp jolt of intense tenderness, radiating piercingly from where Doumeki's tongue flicked around the swollen edges of his erect nipple.

"Hn! Dou… aah… mm-nn… idiot... I won't... last this way…" Watanuki warned, unable to help the anxious writhing of his waist. That got Doumeki's attention, and the priest lifted his gaze to Watanuki's wavering amethyst eyes.

"Can you put it in, or should I?" Doumeki offered evenly, though Watanuki could feel the damp touch of Doumeki's solid manhood against his thigh.

"Eh?" Watanuki's eyes widened in surprise then lowered shyly as he looked away. "I'd- I'd have to loosen up first."

"Hmn?" Doumeki frowned briefly before his moist lips split into a grin. "I mean, should I put _yours_ in _for you_."

"Wha- y-y-you! WHAT ARE YOU SAYING!" Watanuki bellowed as the mental image formed vividly in his mind.

Doumeki sighed as he raised his back and shifted his legs, properly straddling the Onmyouji. "Which part confuses you?" he asked patiently, throwing a backward glance to check if had adequately gauged their positions.

"I'm not confused!" Watanuki snapped, though his thundering heart made it hard for him to string the rest of his thoughts coherently. "You- you-"

Doumeki's timely grasp of the Onmyoujji's straining manhood spared him from another outburst. "You're too noisy," the priest informed the flustered youth as he started to align himself.

"Dou- Doumeki…" Watanuki protested uncertainly.

"It'll be fine," Doumeki murmured although his shoulders tensed visibly as he took a deep breath.

"Wait- Doume- Hn!"

Heat clamped over Watanuki's manhood like a fiery vice. Pleasure, thick and molten blinded him for a moment as his back dug desperately into the mattress in an effort to bleed off the sudden shock. His vision fracturing in fresh tears, Watanuki tried to focus on the quiet grunt he thought he had heard.

"Dou- Doumeki?" Watanuki called raggedly.

"Nn- mm. I'm fine." Doumeki responded in a determined but markedly weaker tone.

"Idio- hah-uhn!" Watanuki's remonstrance melted in an uncontrollable moan as did the rest of him. The Onmyouji could feel Doumeki coursing down the mere flesh of his manhood with the unmaking heat of a raging forge. The tight clasp of Doumeki's inner walls pulsed furiously, mercilessly tight as they surged against Watanuki's swollen core.

Watanuki bit back the moans, but his torn breaths were painfully audible in the dimly lit room. Only Doumeki's strained grunts cut more deeply into the Onmyouji's consciousness.

"Doumeki…" Watanuki whispered between burdened breaths.

"Nn- ah- haa- how is it?" The priest rasped, golden eyes bright and brittle as they gazed down at an entranced Watanuki. An amethyst gaze glided up from Doumeki's fitfully throbbing manhood, over the clenched lines of a smoothly muscled abdomen, further up past the bandaged solid chest and firm shoulders gleaming with sweat and moonlight, until they reached the unguarded honesty in those brilliant eyes still set in a stubbornly stoic face.

"You're all- nhn… in." Doumeki informed him, breaking the spell.

"It's good." Watanuki mumbled embarrassedly, unable to resist the sudden urge to offer some encouragement. "It feels good… inside of you…"

Doumeki smiled wanly, his strong front slipping somewhat, but he quickly recovered with a confident nod. "I can move," he declared. "That should help things."

"There's no hurry!" Watanuki was quick to forestall, but Doumeki only sent a steady, impassive look down at the Onmyouji's anxious dismay.

"I can move," he repeated simply. Doumeki leaned back, hands planted flat beside the outer sides of Watanuki's smooth thighs as his arms propped his reclining body. His feet grazed their ankles against the sloping inward curves of Watanuki's sensitive waist, making the latter jerk back in tender surprise. The motion shifted Watanuki's captured manhood in Doumeki, awakening more raw sensations for both youths. Meeting Watanuki's plaintive expression with a faintly amused smirk, he dragged his feet further apart, his legs spreading wider, offering a more unobstructed view of his hardened self.

Just as Watanuki was wondering if he should wrap his fingers round the beckoning shaft, fire seized him once more, tinged with rapidly fading contentment as the reluctant slide of Doumeki's inner folds slowed to a stop. When his vision returned to him, Watanuki found Doumeki's earlier controlled incline curling into itself, the muscles in the priest's neck taut and shaking.

"Dou-! Idio- uh! Just don't move!" Watanuki instructed sternly, unable to keep a faint tremor from his voice. Lifting himself up on his elbows, he rose to rest up against Doumeki, his arms wrapped carefully about the priest's sides and back to support Doumeki's quivering form. "You can relax now, just let go." Watanuki soothed, aware that the priest's limbs were still locked to keep that straining body aloft. "I have you."

"We're not stopping," Doumeki wanted to ensure even as his body slowly relaxed within Watanuki's hold. Watanuki sighed but made no other comment. Instead, he nibbled an earlobe, humming pleasantly as Doumeki exhaled appreciatively. Whether by instinct or by intention, the priest's inner walls rolled excitedly against Watanuki's engulfed manhood in wavelike motions, pressing tides of aching pleasure against the Onmyouji's length.

"Oouu-" Watanuki groaned despite himself, instantly regretting when Doumeki stirred in his arms.

"Let's continue." The priest began, his shoulders starting to tense again, but Watanuki growled in disapproval.

"Stop that!" He ordered, frowning exasperatedly at Doumeki's unyielding expression. With an irritable and embarrassed sigh, he bumped his forehead against Doumeki's. "Alright… but rest your arms on me instead. Might be easier that way."

Doumeki considered this for a moment before nodding. Leaning in against the Onmyouji for balance, he replaced his hands to grip Watanuki's slender but strongly corded upper arms. "We're starting," he declared.

Watanuki shook his head, but an expectant thrill gripped him, drawing his awareness down to Doumeki's member that grazed his stomach every so often in its rhythmic pulses. Impulsively, he pressed his hardened abdomen against it, the sweet shift of his own stiffness in Doumeki creating the illusion that he could feel the stimulation the priest's hefty glans received. As if on cue, Doumeki raised himself higher over the Onmyouji, dragging Watanuki's thick manhood out of the churning furnace.

"Nhh- a-hah-haah…"

"Mhn-nn…"

Watanuki's spilling moans flowed over Doumeki's restrained grunts, mentally easing the strenuous exploration between them. Pausing momentarily, Doumeki breathed deeply and lowered himself back down on the impaling rod.

"Nn- hsss-"

The smooth solidness split the barely sealed abyss once more, and Doumeki's vulnerable centre yielded with deep pain and agonized flashes of twisted bliss.

Watanuki lost his breath as Doumeki swallowed him again without completely unsheathing him, wrapping the Onmyouji's twitching manhood in intense layers of undulating sensuality. When he could breathe again, it was only to renew struggling moans as Doumeki clenched while rising up once more.

"Haa- oouu- mm-hn- haa-ah!"

The walls closer to the mouth of the priest's passage were harder, clamping down on Watanuki with a vice-like clasp. As the direction reversed, and Watanuki returned to the innermost depths, the tightly squeezing flesh seemed more pliant for all their pressure. Through the constricting assault on his senses, the memory of how soft and moist the soft flesh had felt to his squelching fingers prompted him to push his manhood at an inquisitively questing angle.

"Nnnh! Ah! Wata-" Doumeki gasped, unprepared for the sudden jab.

"Haa… S-sorry… haa…" Watanuki apologized with difficulty. It was very soft indeed. The reaffirmed discovery both worried and excited the youth. He didn't want to hurt the gentle priest, but the thought that the adamantine hardness of his self was now tamely prying apart the holy warrior's weakest hollows, made him giddy with the power he could so easily abuse. Just as it had been before with his embedded fingers, an ache throbbed in his very being, urging him to lance through the living fissure with a primal force begging to be released.

"Mmmn… ooouu…" The Onmyouji groaned, fighting to lock his waist in place.

Doumeki, oblivious to Watanuki's inner battle, began to quicken his pace. His body instinctively knew how it needed to be filled, even if the hastened movements bruised him more surely now. If the exquisite thrill that made him writhe from within would only jolt sporadically when he rode the Onmyouji, he needed to move even faster to increase their incidence. Doumeki could still remember the throes of ecstasy Watanuki's fingers had sent him into, mercilessly plunging into his fatal pleasure points. The ghostly memory of their touch was agonizingly tenuous now. Then, with three fingers sliding violently within him, he hadn't felt half as filled as he did now, and yet he had been utterly helpless as Watanuki played recklessly in his most private depths. Now, Doumeki could only imagine what that same violence would make him feel with this new formidable girth stretching him so brazenly from so deep within. Pain beyond imagining surely at first, but gradually giving way to delirious delight spiralling upwards to a crushing climax he couldn't even begin to create in his fantasy. Chasing that white-hot blaze from before, Doumeki stirred the wet sounds of torrid invasion more rapidly.

"AH! Haa! Haa! Uuooo- hah!" Watanuki cried out, completely at the mercy of Doumeki's chasing ride, his self-control backfiring on him. As loud as Watanuki was, Doumeki's barely satisfied grunts still pressed into his hearing.

"Geh! Unh-hn-mm-uh!"

"Ooouu- Dou- uhaah- HAH!" Watanuki's waist began to tremble as currents of torturous reward ran deliciously throughout his frame. Still, it wasn't enough. In the same moment his body rejoiced in the powerful thrills that stoked his feverish passions, it bridled unhappily at the unendurable passivity. The masculine instinct in him to thrust up hard tore furiously at the seemingly unreasonable restraint. Watanuki bit down hard on his lower lip, unwilling to relent.

"Nn- haa- tch!" To Doumeki the random flashes of joy were still not dense enough, barely gathering to a clear bolt within him, though they tantalized him with bursts of delicate pleasure. He spurred on his own frantic ride, ending each thorough downward swoop with a burning leap, pulling that massive mast just up to the point where it started to leave him.

"HA! Mmmn… Ouunh-hah-hnn! Hah! Un-haah- ouuu ..." Watanuki's moans were led entirely by the orchestrating bobs of Doumeki's body, the priest's wildly bouncing member beating time against his stomach. He longed to express his own fervent strokes, but the compelling rage behind that desire inspired a denying fear. His frustration seeped into the tremulous strains of his passionate cries. "HAA! Ouuu… Hmn-hmn- AH! HAH! HOUU! NH!"

Doumeki contributed his own vexed complaints.

"Hn! Fff-mhhn- Hanh! Tch! Hah!" Despite his best efforts, the elusive sensations that Doumeki pursued slipped like quicksilver along his writhing walls. Unhappily, Doumeki slammed down hard on Watanuki's swollen cudgel. Slick with Watanuki's weeping effusions and his own churned juices, that ramming cudgel broke into new ground. "Kh-haangh!" Pain bled from within, spreading agonizingly to the rest of him. For a moment, Doumeki wondered if he had actually torn himself.

Watanuki saw the twisting pain on Doumeki's face, and he matched the priest's growing pallor as Doumeki's movements slowed timidly.

"What's wrong?" Watanuki demanded, insistently pressing his cheek against Doumeki's abruptly lowered head. "Something's wrong. Don't hide it! You're hurting?"

Doumeki shook his head slowly, his sharp frown gradually folding away. A couple of deep breaths later, and the priest's gilded gaze swept calmly over Watanuki's stricken expression. "It's a funny thing," he explained in an unconcerned manner, "this kind of pain… it hides a kind of pleasure that you only feel after a few more tries."

"A few more- are you _crazy_! That sounded bad just now; _really _bad…" Watanuki swallowed heavily, remembering how close he had been to pummelling Doumeki to his own feral contentment.

"I'm continuing." Doumeki declared flatly, meeting Watanuki's glare with a steady look. "I was really starting to feel good," he assured more gently, then added thoughtfully, "that's how I got careless."

Watanuki tried to think of something to say, but he couldn't. "It… r-really felt good?" he mumbled at last.

Doumeki nodded. "I need to make it last longer; stronger," Doumeki admitted. "Something's missing."

"Missing?" Watanuki repeated blankly.

"What you did earlier with your fingers, moving so roughly inside me- that was very enjoyable." Doumeki confessed completely unperturbed, though Watanuki had to look away, cheeks aflame. "Now with something bigger, the feelings should be stronger, but they're not, paradoxically enough. No matter how fast I go."

"With my fingers, I could control the movements a lot more." Watanuki reminded him, trying to recover from his embarrassment.

"Perhaps…" Doumeki almost conceded, "…or I'm doing it wrong. Perhaps you should do the thrusting now."

"Wha- but! I don't think that's a good idea!" Watanuki hastily declined.

Doumeki watched him curiously. "Why? Oh. It feels better for you if I do it. I see…"

"It's not that you perverted priest!" Watanuki snapped, glowering at the smirk on Doumeki's face. "I might not be able to control myself!"

Doumeki's smirk froze, then lengthened into an expectant grin that terrified the Onmyouji.

"No, no, no…" Watanuki repeated shaking his head resolutely. "NO!"

Doumeki didn't argue, but his firmly set expression bore no signs of submission either. Instead, he started to move at a fraction of his earlier speed.

"Hah!" Watanuki gasped in surprise. He hadn't lost his stiff excitement in the brief distraction, not in the slightest, and Doumeki's excruciatingly slow pump showed him just how hard he remained. "Mmmnnnnh… haaah… you're… you're doing this on purpose!" he accused as Doumeki's inner walls crushed him with the dreadful patience of a devouring python.

"Yep." Doumeki agreed unabashed, though his cheeks were beginning to fill again with the hue of his own excitement. Even at this tormenting speed, there was a unique enjoyment to be savoured. With each downward stroke, he could keenly feel Watanuki's thick manhood splitting him apart, and the experience was tinged with an indistinct but pervasive thrill that made him rumble with the barest hints of contentment. "Mmrrh…"

Each upward pull was murder for Watanuki.

"Hah… hah… nnh! Doumeki!" As Doumeki drew the Onmyouji's manhood out from the undulating cage of flesh, Watanuki was forced to endure a cruelly narrowing warmth that intensified as it shrunk, until the livid head of his thick rod caught against the sphincter's grip, sealed in fierce heat. The rest of his length was left to shudder yearningly outside of the capricious sheath, so that when Doumeki sank back down at a glacial pace, every stoked nerve in Watanuki's core being screamed for him to run through the teasing priest with swift vengeance. "Ahnnnn… y-you- haa-ah! Hnnnnn!"

"How long do you think… you'll last… mhn… like this?" Doumeki murmured with an infuriating composure Watanuki could not muster. "It could be hours before we get anywhere."

"Haaa- hsss- nhhhhn! You're goin- nnngh… to regre-hn…et this!" Watanuki promised, feeling his self-control beginning to collapse over his sanity. "You- hnnn… you'll be beg-uhn… begging me again!"

"… I was helpless." Doumeki whispered, drawing a startled look from Watanuki.

"Dou-" Watanuki began ineffectively as he was drawn out of his scattered thoughts into the magnetic pull of those piercing eyes.

"Your fingers inside of me… they flicked and pulled… nhmm…. pressed and warped my insides, toying with my most vulnerable depths… nhah… and I could do… nothing." Doumeki finished with a heavy breath, watching Watanuki tremble with naked fear and exhilaration at his words.

"You started with a single finger… hn… probing me… it was uncomfortable… hah… but I thought I could handle it… when I did that, trying to show you it didn't matter… you plunged in another… hnnnn… another finger… hah… chastening me… so hot… but… mhn… but… still I resisted… boldly pretending you couldn't overwhelm me…

"So… ngh… so your two fingers taunted me… un… twisting this way and that… haah… and you showed me… haah… showed me pain and pleasure… still vague… mhn… but coiling about each other… haa… in a way I had never known before… nhh…

"But… haah… you were still being kind… mhnn… still… so gentle… un… hmmn… you were reluctant to show me… hnnn… show me true agony… hn… true ecstasy… mmhn… but… I was proud… hn… So when you offered to pierce me with… haaa… a third finger… hnn… I agreed…

"When… you… haah… slid that third finger in… so suddenly… so deeply… haa… I cried out… nhhh… it hurt… but it was good… haa… I should… hnn… should have known then… your fingers… haa… what your fingers were doing to me…

"You moved… hnn… so cautiously… haanh… but… I… unh… insi- unh… inside… haa… every small movement... ngh… awoke me… haah… to such sweetness… nn… such indecisive sweetness… mhhn… as you worked in me… unh… my waist shook… haaah… so shamelessly… hnn… greedy for more…

"You… hnnn… obliged me… ooouu… hah… filling me… keh-hah… filling me with stretching probes… pushing deep into me- Ah! Hah!" Doumeki broke off from his recounting as Watanuki suddenly moved within him. The thick wedge in him drove at a pace only marginally faster than his own had been, but the first taste of Watanuki's initiated strokes made him weak with breathless contentment.

"Don't stop," Watanuki ordered tersely, his eyes fixed hungrily upon Doumeki. "Keep talking."

Unwilling and unable to deny Watanuki while the young Onmyouji plunged into him so persuasively, Doumeki took a steadying breath and continued.

"Push-pushing… hnn! Deep… deep into me… haaanh! And-and- ouuuh… you touched it… unuuuh… that spot… mfff-unnnh… ooou… hah… there…"

"Go on..." Watanuki commanded softly while his hips thrust up with fluid insistence.

"Ouuu! Hah! You… nhhah! Your fingers touched that spot… hnnn… where I couldn't… pretend… haah… I yielded… in a rush of intense pleasure… haaahn… breaking me…

"How? How did I break you?" Watanuki growled, lust thickening in his voice as he rammed up harder, more furiously.

"AHN! UH! Hnnnn- ooou…. Hah… OOU! AH! Watanuki! Hah! Y-you… mhn… you s-stopped… haaahn! But I begged you… ooou… mmmhn! Hnnnn… I begged you… ooouh… aaaah… please… ahaaah! I begged you… hmmn-nhh… to torture me with your fingers… NH! To move… hah… hah… harder… NNH! To sweep across… to rake… AAHN! Claw! To claw … hn… to even claw… hahn… every inch of me… ooooou- OOOUH!" Doumeki threw his head back as Watanuki's merciless pummelling soundly routed his raw rent. The scalding friction glowed incandescent in his mind, and the coarse thrusts scorched his breaths with exultant joy. Watanuki's own breaths came fast and hard, his violet eyes catching every ecstatic performance Doumeki's rapturous throes nakedly displayed.

"Why?" The Onmyouji pressed sternly, forcing the young Shinto priest to look at him through a bleary golden gaze. "Why did you want me to rake every- inch- of- you- in- side!" He demanded, punctuating each of those last few words with a solid lancing stab.

"OOOU! AHHH! AHHHH! HNGH! HAAANH! OOOUUH!" Doumeki cried wildly, powerless to stop the brutal treatment that sundered his walls so potently. "Because I wanted you!" the words rushed out in a ragged breath. "OOU! HANH! I wanted you… hnnn-haaaah! AH! Wanted you to touch… mmmfff… that spot! To bore into it with… aahhnnhaah! With your finger… tips… Ouuh! To press into it… uhhhnhnnn! DIG- OOOU! Dig into it! To break me! Break me… hnnnnnaaah! Show… hauuunh… hah… me my place!"

"And did I show you?" Watanuki asked coldly, though his gaze melted Doumeki's fragmented will. "Did I _show _you?" The loud slaps of his body smacking against Doumeki grew more strident, more urgent.

"AAAH! YES! OOU- HAAAHN! HNGAAH! Yes! You did! You did! Hnnuaangh! HAAAH! I wanted… hnnngh… to reach… that… haunh… that climax with, with you… haa-NNH! But! But… ahhhaaa-hn! You taught me… mmmhhhn… that… that… AH! It's not my place… OUUHN! Not- not my place to de- AH-HNN! Decide such a thing!"

Watanuki chuckled feverishly, enjoying the spectacle as he slammed blisteringly into Doumeki, sluicing in out of the soaked nether mouth like a pounding piston gone berserk. "Hnn- haha… What happened next, huh? Haa… haa… Come on… say-some-thing-!"

SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

Each accompanying assault emphasizing each syllable blasted into Doumeki with devastating force.

"AAAH! OOOOOUUUHAA-NHHAAA-HUUUOO-OH! Mmmm- mmmm- haaanh- haahnnn… Wata- ooouuhnnn… there… ouuuhnnn… right there… haahhnn… that first thrust… nhh… that's the place…" Doumeki pleaded, though his chest ached from the suffocating burden of the extreme stimulation. That was the sensation he had been chasing, that obliterating wash of pure jubilation, and now that he had been given it again, he wasn't willing to let it escape him.

"HNN! Haa-nnnh! Heh! Haa… You're squeezing me so tight…" Watanuki complained, half-laughing, "you really liked that, huh?"

Doumeki didn't answer, but the dimmed light of his eyes fell beseechingly over Watanuki's panting sneer.

"Keep on talking," Watanuki instructed, his hips slowing to make his point.

"Nh!" Doumeki's eyes widened immediately, and his head swung about desperately as he searched in his mind for what came next. "Haa… nhh-haaa… it- it wasn't my place to decide such a thing… haa… haa-unnh… but- but I stubbornly wanted to… haa… even though I could barely stand... haannnh… could barely stand while your fingers… ahhhaahnn… scythed madly in me… I tried to insist… haaahnn… daring to insist… haa-haa-nnh! Yet… yet… haa… haa… yet each clawing track you scraped… mmmmnh… oooouhn… nearly brought me to my... hnnn… knees… AH! HAAHN! Wata- OOUUHAAA!"

Watanuki had rewarded the priest by gradually raising his speed as Doumeki narrated, but the priest had rapidly exceeded expectations, and Watanuki granted him a delicious nudge in the true angle that elicited such dissolute cries from the priest. As a bonus, he had bestowed the favour a second time, stopping evilly as the priest was forced to break off from his recounting.

Doumeki didn't need to be prompted, though his moans carried a hint of exasperated reproach. "Mmmmhhn… Wata… haa… ouuhh… mmmhn… I'll continue… so… hn… haa… you had no choice… haa… but to punish me… haa… for such misbehaviour… oouuh… so you took my manhood… haaanh… and you pressed into all… haa… my weak spots… while… hnn… while your fingers inside… haa… did the same at a more… haa… wanton pace… mmmhn… I moaned and moaned… hnnn… it was so good… my resistance was so meaning- haaahn! Meaningless!"

Doumeki watched Watanuki with a defenceless expression of hopeful fear as the Onmyouji started pumping again at a more manageable but excruciatingly tame pace. At this pace, he could manage to continue the story, ensuring Watanuki's continued generosity, but at the same time, he sorely missed the mind-rupturing impact delivered against that critical angle. Still, now that the crucial course had been directly riven through so recently, even the deliberately indirect brushes he received awoke vivid phantom flashes of the intense sensation. What would be truly intolerable would be if Watanuki ceased his movements once more, or worse- remove that engorged cudgel from within him, denying the priest completely.

Before Watanuki could withhold his movements again, Doumeki quickly continued with his narration. "It was meaningless… haa… my resistance… but you were kind enough- hahh-hn! Kind enough to spare… nnhhaaa… spare me a litt- nnnh! A little consciousness… haa… haa… which I took… oouhh… for grant- granted…

"I fought… nnnh… foolishly… still… aaanh… asking, asking for you to join me… hoouunnh… in that final… final ecstasy…

"I should have- ahaahn! I should have been grateful! Haa… haaa… but I wasn't… haaa… my meaning… less… oouhn… meaningless pride… blinded me- hnnnh!

"To t-teach me… oouunh… to teach me… how truly power… less… haaah… haaaannh… I was… your fingers… ooouhouh… front... front and back… seized such… such total control! Hnnnh! You… you held all the strings- nnh! You gripped my manhood… ooouh… hnnn… so tight… I would have crashed… nhh… to my knees… mmh… right then… humbled by your… ngh… your first pump.

"But… nhhh… your fingers in my, my breach… hauungh… they hooked-nhaaah! They hooked all my tender spots… oouuhhn… mmmhhnnn… I danced jerkily… desperately… haa… by the play of your… your fingers… Mhhhhnnn… I wasn't allowed to… nhhh… fall… _you_… didn't allow me to…"

Doumeki paused to shift his grasp to Watanuki's delicate but strong shoulders, watching the Onmyouji turn his violet eyes upon him. The gentleness was still there… underlying everything… but a bold power had surfaced to the brightest prominence in them, challenging him, capturing him… So his hunch was right… Watanuki did enjoy the control, the dominance. As exhilarating as the tale was for the priest himself, his words stoked a dangerous passion in the Onmyouji that went beyond simple dirty talk. It was at best, a guilty pleasure, a private indulgence; at worst, a suppressed dark personality come unfettered.

Those eyes sought to reign over his body, his will, and his heart. Those eyes bound his very soul. Those eyes assured him they would have him weeping with willing submission and fear only his master's displeasure.

Doumeki was surprised to find that he could accept that. All of it.

Now those eyes commanded him to bring the story to its end, and Doumeki found himself craving to obey.

"There was no escape… hnnn… you conquered me entirely… my manhood was dominated in your grasp… houuhnn… my most private inner spaces… mmmh…. convulsed in your every whim… oouuhnn… your gracious… haaannhh… punishment… clutching me so… oouhh… rigorously… scouring me- ngggh! So relentlessly! I was yours to wield… haaaahn! Yours to torture! Wata- nnnh! Mmmhhn! Please… please… stronger… unnnh! Haaanh… I can't-"

"Heh, heh… you did such a good job with the story, I should reward you, but…" Watanuki trailed in mock disappointment. Doumeki cast an anxious look at the Onmyouji, golden eyes searching as he hurriedly pleaded.

"If- if I did something-" he began bewilderedly.

Watanuki's eyes glinted wickedly in the moonlight. "You were trying to tease me yourself weren't you? With those slow, slooow strokes?" Doumeki shivered as Watanuki's unhurried but smooth pace dragged out to delayed inching, starting and stopping in short bursts of unpredictable action.

"HAAA! NGHH! Haa… haa… OUUNGH! Mmmm... mmmnn... haa... haa… NHNHHH! Ah! Ouuu…. haaaanh…" Doumeki beat his head against the Onmyouji's shoulder, shaking in the erratic waves of taunting pleasure. "Please… HAHN! Nhhh! Nhnnn… mmmmn… forgive me… HAHN! Hoouh… nhhh…"

Watanuki relented enough to lower a kiss against Doumeki's exposed nape, drawing a soft moan from the impaled youth. "I'll forgive you… eventually," he promised and rammed in hard, just missing the perfect spot but close enough to have the priest jolt against him.

"OOOUUH! Ooough! Nggggh! Nhmmm… hnnn… ahhh…" Dizzy with the sharp relief, Doumeki plummeted quickly into needy emptiness. He neither dared nor desired to touch himself, not unless Watanuki permitted him to. Instead, his member shook unhappily, leaking clear fluids that coated the swollen shaft, veins bulging in its fully stretched erection.

Watanuki had returned to coy teases, not even advancing in as he levered his embedded manhood at varying angles and warped the piteously pulsing passage with each mocking twist.

Doumeki endured, biting his lower lip, but it wasn't what the Onmyouji wanted.

"This is uninspiring…" Watanuki muttered ominously, prompting Doumeki to raise his head concernedly. "You're so quiet, I'm not even sure if you really want this…"

"I do!" Doumeki hastily insisted, his thoughts racing as he guessed at what was expected of him. "I- I need you to punish me… to batter me into repentance… so that I'll truly learn… truly be sorry."

Watanuki pushed himself in fully and Doumeki whimpered in the barely satisfying rush. Already, Watanuki was pulling out.

"Oooouunh… haaaanh…" The priest instantly knew this was Watanuki's way of encouraging him and his lips quavered with yearning, aware that his continued obedience could earn him the rough ploughing he ached for.

"Please… hnnh… leave your mark in me- UUUHN! Uhnn… your girth… stretch me so that I know who- haaahn…. whose presence fills- UHNAAAH! Hnnnn… fills me…"

Watanuki's swift approval stabbed first partly, then fully into Doumeki's rent, filling him just as the priest had requested. The fresh sensations after the prolonged teasing devastated him.

"Hnnn… please… please spare me no quarter… haah-haaanh! D-Demand from me… hnnn… the tears of remorse- HAAANGH! OOUH! HAAANH! Tears! Tears of remorse due to you! OUUUH!"

Watanuki dug more vigorously now, aiming for angles that avoided Doumeki's most tender and desired secrets, sliding up walls that quivered in the fury of the strokes.

"Strip… hnnn- haaah- HAH! Strip me of my… oooungh- hnnn! Arrogance... hnnn! Show me again how… how… haahnnn… worthless…. huuuunh… my pride is…HNNN! NGAAAH!  
Haaah!"

Watanuki provoked other untouched walls, carving new molten courses that disoriented Doumeki, keeping him sensitive and unprepared.

"NGHAAAH! HNNNN! Mhnnnnn! OUUUGH! Mnn! HOOOUGH! Haaah… haaah… T-Tame my body…. Ouuuu! This cleft… this quivering recess… Hannh! Train it to gratefully… ngaaah-hah! Gratefully accept your training! NGH! NNNNGH! AHHHHHAH! MN-HAAAAAAH!"

Each fleshy smack announced Watanuki's drilling manhood, widening the loosened depths even further. Familiar pain flared anew in Doumeki, but he welcomed it, happy for anything apart from that lukewarm, erratic pace from before. Surely and steadily, the pain gave way to shocks of delight as Doumeki's inner walls welcomed the mildly satisfying friction.

"Mmmmn! Hnnn! Nghhhh! Haaaa! Brand me! Unhaaah! Brand me with your manhood! Hnnh! Make me cry out- haaaaanh! Make me- unnnnh! Scream with your every stroke!"

Grunting his approval, Watanuki slammed in at the final angle he had left untouched, scoring it again and again with deadly accuracy.

"OOOOOOOOOOOUGGGH! NGHHHHH! NO! AHHHHH! AHHHHH! WATA- HAAAANGGH! OUUUGH! OUUUGH!"

Doumeki threw himself hard against Watanuki's firm frame, pure rapture, pure fire, disintegrating him from within as Watanuki's solid core connected unfailingly with every splitting blow.

"HNGAAAAAAAAH! OUUUUUUUUUH! NO! AHHHHH! HANNGH! GHOOOU! I- can't- can't- hnnngAAAAAH! AAAAH!"

Still his buffeted erection wouldn't burst with its burning seed. The sensations were too intense, and he clenched forbiddingly on his release, fearing the result of what such a destructive spewing would do to his sanity.

But Watanuki would have none of that.

"Haa! Haa! Let's see how you KEEP-THIS-IN!"

SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!

With a defeated cry, Doumeki arched back, Watanuki supporting him readily in his arms.

"AAAAAAAAAOOOOOUUUHH! HAAAAAAAAAAANGH! KH-HAAAAAAAA!"

Thickly corded power burst violently through too narrow an opening whilst Watanuki's ramming head pressed deeply into Doumeki's prostate. Volley after volley ripped out from the priest, each white-hot shot wiping out every thought and sense he carried in him. Watanuki's own drowned out release in the priest's softened depths mere seconds later, merged with his own, surging into Doumeki like geysers of hot essence scalding through even more abused pathways.

Distantly a voice called, a kind voice, a worried voice. He thought he felt someone wipe the clinging tears from his lowered lashes and kiss each lid with heartbreaking tenderness. Moments before the abysmal dark claimed him, he believed he heard someone confess something with his name. Weakly, he moved his lips in reply, hoping that that person could hear him.

"_I'll never leave you, too…"_

_

* * *

_TBC


	13. The Beds We Lie In

A/N: It's been a while, and it would have been longer had I not needed to just eff it all and de-stress. Please enjoy.

* * *

The Beds We Lie In

"So there… there really are such things as demons?" Kouichi stammered, fear taut in his face.

"Guess so. Sorry to confirm your worst fears." Saeki chirped brightly as he lounged back against the deep red sofa in Kouichi's apartment. A quick glance at the clock told him that it was quite late… for a human, but it seemed that it would be later still before they were done here. "Look," he began with forced patience, "I know this is all a little too crazy and too fast… but we had an arrangement. _I _tell you what the deal is with me and Watanuki, and _you_ tell me all about yourself and that priest-boy."

Kouichi looked up, dark eyes narrowed in a scowl. "How do I know I can trust you! You said yourself- you tried to attack me once!"

Saeki raised fine brows, tilting his head back a bit as he watched the indignant youth disdainfully "I believe _you_ would have been the one doing the 'attacking' had you taken me up on that offer." Smirking with satisfaction as he watched Kouichi's cheeks flame brightly, Saeki rolled his back off the soft fabric and leaned in closer. "Besides, I told you. I never take more than I need to survive. Unless… someone pisses me off big time."

"Are you threatening me?" Kouichi demanded, dark eyes flashing with anger.

Saeki leaned in so suddenly, Kouichi had no time to jerk back before the guardian spirit's words were whispered by his earlobe.

"_You don't piss me off…_"

Saeki's beatific smile upon drawing away was not at all reassuring.

"W-What happens to the men who… take you up on your offer?" Kouichi couldn't help but ask.

"Are you flirting or checking the price tag?" Saeki asked back.

"You're not answering the question."

Saeki sighed and picked up the glass of apple juice Kouichi had served earlier. "They used to pay a week's worth of life for a night's worth of living," he answered quietly, the wicked grin hovering before the rim of the glass.

Kouichi swallowed hard.

"If it helps, I prefer lawyers working for big corporate companies…" Saeki informed the college student. Kouichi watched the guardian spirit for a stunned moment before breaking into a soft, resigned chuckle.

"You said 'used to'," he pursued when he recovered. "That's because of the guardian spirit thing you were talking about?"

"Yeah, now I survive on my master's- on Watanuki's power." Saeki explained, taking a small sip from his glass.

"And that doesn't hurt him?" Kouichi watched the subtle shifts of the fair throat as Saeki drank.

Saeki lowered the glass in his cupped hands. "No. It doesn't. He's very powerful- but I'm sure you know that. The priest-boy must've told you something."

"I guess." Kouichi replied noncommittally. In truth, he hadn't had much time alone with Doumeki to have been told much, and he suspected Doumeki wouldn't have liked him to get too involved.

"There are others who want to hurt him though." Saeki pointed out.

Kouichi nodded soberly. "His foster parents- murdered. The people, no, I guess, the _demons_, who did that."

"So where do you come in, in all of this?" Saeki prompted again, crossing his legs and resting his glass on his raised knee.

Kouichi chewed his nether lip for a moment before answering. "I want to catch those murderers."

"Why?"

Kouichi goggled at Saeki. "O-of course! I mean… it's just- anyone would!"

"Anyone?" Saeki tapped his finger against the glass. "Since the news of the incident, it's mostly been the gay community that's been in a furore about it. You… what possible interest could _you _have?"

Kouichi opened his mouth to retort but fell silent. He lowered his face in his hands, rubbing it against the open palms. Sighing when he was done, he raised a tired expression to the guardian spirit. "I saw it, alright. Saw the… scene. _He _knew. Doumeki, the priest-boy? Knew it before anyone else did. Whoev- _whatever _did that has to pay. No one deserves that sorta ending- or story… I mean, to your master, that's what it is isn't it? A part of his story, his tragedy."

"So you feel… you're responsible for bringing them to justice? I'm not mocking you." Saeki assured when Kouichi rolled his eyes.

"But you think it's stupid right? I mean, I don't have powers like Doumeki, or your master, or even you for that matter. I mean… I've tormented a few gay schoolmates myself, back in high school... one of whom had had the bad taste to confess to me… but these past few days… since that incident… I've started wondering… who's really wrong… the ones being laughed at… or the ones laughing…" Kouichi trailed off, staring vacantly at the glass tabletop.

"Demons didn't attack Watanuki's foster parents because they were gay." Saeki pointed out bemusedly.

"I know," Kouichi admitted, combing through his hair agitatedly with his fingers, "but back when I still thought things like you didn't exist- well, once you start accepting you can't pretend you never accepted it! And Master, Keiki, Kurou, all you guys… you guys seem ok… and it doesn't feel weird being around you guys… except when you start flirting…"

"So that's your reason. You want to… make amends?" Saeki sounded mildly surprised.

"… I guess."

"And Doumeki's reasons?"

Kouichi shook his head, leaning back into the sofa. "I can't- I can't tell you that. It's not that I'm reneging on our deal, I just need to check with him first- with Doumeki."

Saeki shrugged. "So he's the boss, huh?"

Kouichi laughed weakly. "That's not how I'd put it..."

"Well clearly he's got a leash on your balls. You can't get it up without his say-so…"

Kouichi's stiffened jaw twitched threateningly, but he forced himself to smile. "That's not going to work on me either."

"And he has you whipped with that leash- tell me, why exactly are you being his bitch?" Saeki leaned in, eyes narrowed challengingly.

"Because I know he's the one who's going to kill bastards like you!" Kouichi snapped before he could stop himself.

"Oh," Saeki grinned toothily, "and what makes you say that?"

Kouichi gripped the sides of his seat, his arms tensing. He wasn't certain if he was trying to calm himself, or if he was readying to leap, but Kouichi was suddenly keenly aware of how human and vulnerable he was.

"I didn't mean that… I mean… if you were a demon, he might've, back then, but now you're different… you don't hurt people anymore…"

"I didn't say I don't hurt people anymore…" Saeki murmured as he drew closer.

"I- I didn't mean what I said…" Kouichi almost begged, his breaths trembling in pounding terror.

"That's too bad…" Saeki purred unheedingly, rising off his seat as he climbed into Kouichi's.

"This- this isn't funny!" Kouichi warned desperately.

"No, it isn't, is it?" Saeki agreed as his knees locked into Kouichi's sides.

"Hnnnn! Nhhh! I-idiot! That's-"

"Don't worry… I'll be gentle with you…" Saeki slid against Kouichi's protesting body.

"When Doumeki finds out-" Kouichi rallied desperately, faltering before Saeki's malicious grin.

"I'm afraid he's much too caught up with his own… predicament, for the moment."

* * *

Doumeki awoke with a start.

It wasn't unusual for the Shinto priest to wake up lurching, his heart racing from the horrible sensation that he had been freefalling into a yawning abyss. Yet it always left him unsettled and jumpy for a brief moment after. Scanning his surroundings warily, the subdued colours of the room and the soft and intimate décor reminded him of where he had spent the night. Watanuki had given him a sponge bath while fretting over his temperature and Doumeki had half-deliriously slipped into untroubled slumber.

Watanuki wasn't in the room now. Gazing expressionlessly at the window, he watched pale gold rays flickering with stray motes of roaming dust. A nagging thought cautioned him to sense spiritually for the Onmyouji, but he only frowned impatiently. If Watanuki had wanted to leave, he would have done so already. The youth certainly had had the opportunity! No, Watanuki was not going to leave.

_He's not going to run from me._

The soft click of the door drew his attention to the slender, violet-eyed Onmyouji, fine features twisting briefly with… discomfort? It passed too briefly for Doumeki to work out as Watanuki stepped briskly up to him, bearing breakfast on a black lacquered tray.

"Breakfast… then something for that fever." He paused, watching Doumeki help himself to the meal. "H-how are you feeling?"

Doumeki met anxious violet eyes with silent puzzlement before shrugging.

"Fine. Last night helped."

Doumeki nearly crushed his toast when Watanuki startled him with an agitated grab.

"Doumeki? Shizu-" Watanuki whispered abortively, eyes bright and searching.

Raising his brows, the Shinto priest waited serenely for the Onmyouji to either make some sense, or come to some. At last, Watanuki released him, chastened, disappointment gleaming through long lashes.

"What is it?" Doumeki wanted to know. "Did something happen with you?"

The wince was unmistakeable, but the Onmyouji recovered with a firm shake of his head. "Nothing", he replied, "forget it."

Doumeki studied the somewhat forlorn look the Onmyouji was endeavouring to lift with a weak smile. Grunting with some dissatisfaction, he returned to his toast. He was glad to find a small jar of syrup next to it, and poured the sweet spread generously over the browned bread.

"Hungry?" Watanuki asked with more convincing normalcy.

Doumeki nodded. His appetite rarely suffered even in illness, but this morning he felt especially voracious.

"Eat more. I had the time this morning, so I prepared enough orange cake batter for two cakes. You can have one to yourself when it's done."

Doumeki hummed agreeably then glanced up calculatingly at Watanuki. "With glazing", he ordered, "and frosting."

Watanuki's scowl was only faintly bitter. "Yes, yes!"

When Doumeki watched him with interest, Watanuki flushed and picked up a fork beside the breakfast plate. Stabbing a miniature sausage, he tapped the morsel against the priest's bottom lip. Obediently, Doumeki opened his mouth and dragged his prize off the prongs.

"How is it?" Watanuki asked almost shyly as he cut a neat square from an omelette.

"Guud." Doumeki mumbled indistinctly through his chewing. "Coffee first," he requested once he swallowed. Watanuki set aside the square of omelette, and lifted the coffee cup into Doumeki's waiting hands.

Sipping gratefully, the Shinto priest relaxed a little into the propped pillows, and noticed Watanuki's attentive gaze upon him.

"I'm much better," Doumeki felt he should say. "Just hungry."

That shadow of discomfort clouded Watanuki's expression again, and the youth looked almost remorseful. "You need to eat, and… you don't… feel any… discomfort?"

_I should be asking _you_ that._

The thought passed quickly through Doumeki's mind. He shrugged his shoulders for Watanuki. "The wound doesn't hurt as much."

"I guess… that's okay… then…" Watanuki replied, though he did not seem much reassured.

Doumeki suppressed a sigh. "I've always recovered quickly- the benefits of power."

"But you'll tell me if it hurts?" Watanuki demanded suddenly.

Taken aback, Doumeki merely nodded.

A hesitant relief soothed into the Onmyouji's flushed face.

"I'll go see if the cake's done."

Doumeki watched his departing form with frank bemusement. Now that he really paid attention to it, the familiar throbbing soreness from his wounds seemed to have spread deeper and further below…

* * *

"Haa- haa- hn- haaah…"

"Mmmm… haa- mmh..."

"I-I'm… haa- drained… haa- let me… hn… rest…"

"Mmmmn… but you're still… hn... hah… so hard… and twitching, Kouichi-_sama_…"

"No- annh! Don't! Hn! There! Aanh! Hah-hn-hn-hnnn- no please- hn-hn-hnnn-"

"Shhh- shhh- ok, ok, hah… relax… mmmh… I'm letting you go…."

"Unh… haa… hn… haa…"

"There-"

"Hn!"

"Shhh- Calm down, haa-, I'm just holding you… see?"

"Haa- haa-"

"Shhh- it's okay- it's okay-"

"Haa- mmh-"

"Kouichi…?"

"…"

"You're not bad… for a human…"

"… fuck you…"

Saeki tightened his hold over Kouichi's clammy back and smiled as he felt Kouichi's manhood shrink fitfully into cherubic innocence against his inner thigh. "You already have."

* * *

TBC (;;; the pattern now is once every 5 months...)


	14. The Weeping Moon

A/N: Been busy lately. So much so that I have been remiss in replying the very gracious reviews I've received. I'm very sorry. I promise I'll get to them as soon as my head, and some of the other minor but insistent projects I have, are cleared.

The Weeping Moon

_The whisper of snow against fur is the silent weeping of the moon._

A boy stood atop a shadowed roof and gazed down upon the brightly lit city. Flameless light danced with gay festivity, and the streets teemed with the ordered tumult of surging pleasure seekers. His nose quivering sensitively, the boy tried to ignore the unpleasant odours that reached him even at this towering height. The stench of greed, hatred, lust- the defiling elements, it made him cringe in his jacket. A steady breeze dragged the vileness from the air, and he sighed in soft appreciation. The _kami_ of wind were being kind today. As the fur trim along his jacket collar tickled his cheeks, he sent a querying ripple of his power pulsing over the decadent city. At least his power was insulated against the corruption. Shiun-sama had once praised him for his pristine control over his power- a grand accomplishment. Shiun-sama was hard to please.

Shiro allowed his lids to veil his physical vision, pooling his consciousness into the spiritual vision inside. If he could find the Master, Shiun-sama would praise him again.

He breathed. He searched.

* * *

Saeki grinned when he found Watanuki waiting for him in his room.

"Yo! Busy last night, weren't we?"

The flush of colour rising in Watanuki's cheeks marred the stern glare Watanuki had fixed his guardian with.

"You slept with him." The Onmyouji accused.

Saeki paused before his dressing table mirror and tapped his slightly swollen lips pensively. "These lips need to be broken in, huh? The lips on my previous body wouldn't have shown a month's worth of action-"

"You shouldn't have done that." Watanuki pursued.

"Why?" Saeki asked distractedly. "You're not going to tell me you expect your guardians to be celibate, especially not after last night. Oh! Did you want to be the first-"

"O-of course not!"

"I guess not. You were having a real blast with that hunky slab of priest."

What little crimson that had demurred from appearing now flamed in full view. "You… know?" Watanuki stammered awkwardly.

"Are you kidding? The way you had me going with all that lust- Kouichi's lucky he still has his cock on straight."

"Saeki!"

The youthful guardian met his master's furious embarrassment with blank innocence. "Yes?"

"Are you serious about him?"

Saeki blinked in surprise. "What?"

"Are you serious about him!" Watanuki stepped up to Saeki, clasping his shoulders urgently. "Does he know how you feel about him?"

Saeki held up protesting hands. "Woah, woah- What's this? I slept with the guy, didn't steal his life force, we both had a great time- no one's complaining about _feelings_."

"You don't just sleep with someone you don't feel anything for!"

"Erm… you do know what I do for a living right?"

"But- but he's different!" Watanuki insisted, releasing Saeki as he sank onto the bed. "If Doumeki finds out-"

"But like I said," Saeki repeated, "I didn't take Kouichi's vital energy or anything… and it's not as if that guy was saving himself for someone special- he's almost as much of a slut as I am. I know these things." He paused for a moment. "What's really the problem?"

Doumeki's lavender eyes widened then dipped lifelessly.

"Nothing- really, I-"

Crouching beside his master, Saeki closed his eyes and rested his head against Watanuki's lap. "I'll listen, so… just let it out."

"…"

"…"

"…it's just…"

"…"

"Doumeki… I can't tell him that… can't… tell…"

"… then tell me…"

"I…nnh… I… Doumeki…"

"Master…"

"I love him."

* * *

"I fucking hate him!"

As the confession echoed against the damp walls, Kouichi tried to drown all thoughts of those inviting hips, those greedy undulations…

"I don't like boys- I don't like boys- I don't like boys!"

Yet the image of Saeki's wild mane writhing as the demonic guardian rode with wild abandon, made him-

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Kouichi punched the wall before him, wincing as the pain barely drew his attention away from his stiff arousal.

"It's just that hole, that's what I'm after! Any hole will do! It's not as if- it's not as if- I'm a-a-attracted to hi-hi- aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAH!"

Kouichi slammed his head painfully against the slippery wall this time, yet his excitement still refused to… Sighing mournfully, he reached down to stroke himself…

* * *

"It's a bit sore," Doumeki muttered.

Watanuki flinched, nearly spilling the water in the washbasin. "What is?" he asked with belated nonchalance.

Doumeki gazed fixedly at the washcloth Watanuki was squeezing distractedly. A less informed observer would have suspected that the priest blushed, but that could not be true. Doumeki never blushed.

"Nothing." The priest's flicker of attention was unreadable to the Onmyouji. "It seems I must give your guardian some credit… I am not recovering as swiftly as I thought I would."

"Saeki didn't mean to- wouldn't have meant to hurt you if he'd known who you-" Watanuki stopped, just managing to stop himself from biting his lower lip.

"Who I what?" Doumeki prompted.

"Who you were… an exorcist priest, I mean. Not some rogue mage after my power."

Golden eyes appraised the Onmyouji suspiciously, but relented when Watanuki turned to wipe Doumeki's shoulder.

"Your power is… mysterious. From what I can gather… you're powerful in a way that leaves you… vulnerable. It's quite a puzzle."

Watanuki smiled wryly. "You're welcome to solve it," he murmured, then winced when he heard the bitterness in his voice. "It's not a gift when half the spiritual world wants your soul, while the other half-"

"-wants you dead." Doumeki finished.

Their eyes met.

"Do you want me dead?" Watanuki asked despite himself, the lavender tint to his eyes darkening gently.

"I only want justice." Doumeki frowned. His chest had tightened. Forcing his breath, he continued. "I do not think killing you serves that purpose."

Watanuki's responding smile was slight but enigmatic. Finding himself staring, Doumeki tore his gaze away.

"And so long as I'm here, I'm honour-bound to safeguard the safety of any mortal soul- even yours." Doumeki did not blush. He did not however, meet Watanuki's widened eyes or his pained expression.

"Don't say that."

Now the priest looked up, beholding the anguish in Onmyouji's pallor.

"Why do you think I've been running all this while- no one's promised me that and still lives- no one!"

Doumeki frowned.

"All this while? But these past few years, you-"

Watanuki froze, then his breath returned, quick and agitated.

"I did run… for a long time… but it's hard to… it's hard to not long for… for a bit of rest… a bit of warmth…"

"I do not criticize," Doumeki clarified but Watanuki shook his head.

"But you're not wrong… I allowed myself to falter and two… two good people are now dead because of me," gazing absently at the dark window he added, "I won't repeat that mistake."

"You'll run again." Doumeki stated. "But I can't let you do that. Not until I know who you really are."

Watanuki regarded Doumeki with an expression the latter could not decipher.

"Then you'll have no choice but to come with me."

* * *

As the sleek purr of a car's engine drew up outside, Engel glanced out the window in short-lived surprise at the unexpected promise of patronage. Green eyes drooping, he resolutely ignored the piercing glance he felt through the glass.

_Chrin- chring~_

Tightly clipped footsteps marched up to the counter. While Engel was thankful that he only heard one set, he made no move to raise his head and continued to clean unused glasses.

"Oi." The rough baritone warmed a familiar feeling somewhere in his gut, but Engel ignored it along with the uninvited intruder.

"Oi~"

"…"

"Oi!"

"What do you want!" Engel demanded, tossing his dishtowel at the intruder who snatched it neatly out of the air.

Dropping the dishtowel on the bar, the tall, suited, dark-haired man leaned forward with an insolent leer.

"How cold~ and your boyfriend came all the way to see if you're alright-"

"You've been coming every day! With your big black car and hulking bodyguards that just _screams_ yakuza-"

"I _am _yakuza- it's part of the job-"

"But I can't do _my _job! Not with you frightening off my patrons every night!"

The man surveyed the empty café with mocking dark brown eyes.

"Hooo~ but I don't see any customers around, do I?"

"Fuck you."

"I much rather do the fucking… although if it's you- I might make an exception."

Engel flushed, then hastily turned to the drink cabinets behind him.

"So? What are you drinking?"

"Trying to get me drunk?"

"Just trying to make a living. I'm charging you triple the price."

"How cold~ El Diablo then."

Engel mixed drinks in peace for a few moments before the man began rapping the bar counter with a knuckled fist. When Engel looked, the rude humour in the man's face had been replaced by a brooding frown.

"Something wrong, Aki?" Engel asked with quiet concern.

When Akiyoshi looked up, he smiled a faded smile.

"It's been a bit busy lately," he explained vaguely.

Engel set the coffee pot aside and moved up to the bar counter, reaching for the scarred hand there.

"I appreciate you coming here every night, and for investigating who the culprit behind the attack is, but you shouldn't be exerting yourself so-"

"Just shut up and give your boyfriend a nice relaxing kiss, will ya?"

"… idiot."

"Heh- mm! Mmnnnn…"

"Hmmmm…. Uh-hahah… mmmmmfffff…"

"Mmmmnnn… haaah… hah. Mmm. Yum. I needed that."

"Idiot."

"Now you've got me all excited." Akiyoshi complained, grasping Engel's hand demandingly.

"Aren't your men waiting outside?" Engel reminded him, despite the conspicuous colour rising in his cheeks.

Akiyoshi shrugged, and raised a kiss up against the sharp angle of Engel's cheekbone. "They're earning their keep. You got a room for us?"

"… and you'll earn your keep?" Engel couldn't resist.

Akiyoshi grinned toothily. "I'll work hard, so you'll compensate me well… won't ya _boss_?"

Despite his mocking smile, Engel gulped.

_Chrin- chring~_

Their startled glances were drawn to the open door, and the young child that stood placidly in the frame.

Akiyoshi recovered first.

"What the hell- how did you get in here? Those guys outside should have-"

"So you really _are _chasing my customers away!"

Akiyoshi flinched.

"No- well- you never know if one of them might be the assailant-"

"Erm-"

Both men turned their attention back to the hesitant boy in the doorway.

Engel beamed kindly down at him. "Yes? Can uncle help you with anything?"

The boy's golden eyes scanned the mostly empty bar before lingering on the steps that led to the second floor. As a night breeze stirred his pale hair and the white fur trim of his jacket, he flicked his gaze back to the scowling Akiyoshi and the kindly Engel.

"I'm looking for someone."

* * *

TBC


End file.
